While I understand the criticism of Niebuhr, not to take into account his old world Lutheran background, coming from Missouri, then Detroit, then New York, never living in the South and how fast the world changed between the WWI and WWII, you have to give him a little bit of slack. His original sympathy was to the industrial working class, which was predominately white. As a child of an immigrant family, he did not grasp how deep the racial hatred towards blacks was until later in life...even President Johnson who was from the South and racist was shocked about how Southern white racism would overshadow helping the poor. His only fault would be that he tried to apply what worked for whites to the problems facing blacks, not realizing how entrenched racial inequality is in American society, which is denied or ignored by the majority of white society to this very day.
Very well said. Niebuhr was a product of his upbringing and was criticized for not taking a more activist approach towards the systemic racism that existed in the South and much of the country. Also, keep in mind that Niebuhr suffered a series of debilitating strokes in the 1950s and in the 1960s that began a long period of slow decline and his vibrant and compelling thought was somewhat diminished as a result. By the 1960s he was not nearly as physically active as he once was. If it hadn't been for a decline in physical health I think Niebuhr would have participated in any number of civil rights marches of the 1960s. He certainly supported Martin Luther King Jr's passionate advocacy for civil rights for the African American community.
