“Robert L. Woodson Sr., a veteran of the 1960s civil rights movement, condemned both the BLM riots and the [New York Times] 1619 Project. He has fought to empower the black community for decades, and he told PJ Media that the riots and the 1619 Project actually harm the cause of helping inner-city blacks. ‘Low-income blacks are the collateral damage’ of the riots, Woodson told PJ Media. ‘It’s really damaging. Many of the businesses that are being torched are black-owned businesses. In my own neighborhood of Philadelphia, they burned down a grocery store that employed ex-offenders and a center that treated dialysis patients. I don’t know what this has to do with social justice,’ he quipped. Woodson, who founded the Woodson Center in 1981 in order to help residents of low-income neighborhoods address the problems of their communities, chastised the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement and insisted that the 1960s civil rights movement never worked hand-in-glove with violent rioters. He condemned other civil rights veterans as ‘complicit’ with the riots ‘because they’re not speaking out’ against them. Of the rioters, Woodson insisted, ‘Their target isn’t injustice in America, it’s America itself. They have stopped all pretense of being interested in social justice for blacks. They’re after civil society itself.’ The Woodson Center recently launched a program called 1776 Unites, which combats the 1619 Project’s claim that America’s true founding came with the arrival of the first black slaves, rather than with the Declaration of Independence. While the 1619 Project seeks to ‘present America as a criminal organization founded on slavery,’ 1776 Unites explains that ‘slavery was America’s birth defect, but America is not defined by its defect but by the promise of 1776.’ 1776 Unites includes a team of 20-25 black and white scholars who champion the black Americans who used the free market to build their own prosperity, often facing stiff odds. It also includes ‘community activists whose lives embody’ the spirit of redemption for inner-city communities. ‘There’s a move afoot in black America to recognize that the problems we’re confronting are internal and can’t be solved by external means,’ Woodson said.”
“Civil Rights Vet Warns Against BLM Riots,” PJ Media, July 30, 2020