Op-Ed: The Conservative Group Moms for Liberty Has Dangerous Roots in NC History

Anyone can say anything and it’s very hard to uncover the true meanings or motivations. One just has to look at how the admitted liar George Santos fooled voters into electing him to the House of Representatives. Or how investors put money into FTX, a cryptocurrency company that now has millions of missing dollars.

Few of us have time to question every public statement delivered on a controversial issue. To a certain degree, we could take Moms for Liberty at their word when they say they aren’t for banning books and simply want their principles “to be treated with the same respect as all others.”

Yet American history studies are the ones these activists need to consult to fully understand the impact of their actions.

Rebecca Klein writes in Jane Crow: Then and Now that some historians observe that Moms for Liberty’s ideas and rhetoric echo dated white supremacist thinking. Klein and other writers have explored how white women, in their roles as heads of households and classrooms, have traditionally used their positions to preserve oppressive systems.

They state that “white women are humans who have blind spots, exercise power to pursue their self-interest, and can get defensive when held accountable. In a country where two-thirds of women voters are white and 61 percent of public school teachers are white women, those human failings and biases have real consequences for Black and Brown youth.”

Western Carolina University associate professor Elizabeth McRae has charted the history of white women who have fought against what they’ve deemed unacceptable to their children. Their list of complaints through the years have ranged from integration and teaching about the United Nations to more modern concerns focused on diversity and gender issues.

Advocates make a compelling point that we must move beyond our deeply rooted cultural portrayal of white women as “good, kind, pure, and in need of protection.”

One only has to look at North Carolina’s troubling history of school segregation to understand how white mothers have historically taken the lead in these efforts. In 1957 Mrs. John Z. Warlik shouted, “It’s up to you to keep her out,” to a mob of whites in Charlotte as others tried to enroll Dorothy Counts, the first Black student in Harding High School. The New York Times reported that Warlik was “the most vociferous” in the crowd and that she served as treasurer of the White Citizen Council, a white supremacist group.

It appears the antisegregation forces had strategically positioned a white woman at the center of their fight. After all, that probably helped soften the public scene as protestors made Counts endure “taunting, racial epithets, and being spat on.”

Communications theories help us understand that we give certain people more power and believability when they say things. We’re going to trust a medical doctor for health advice. Likewise, a white mother of school-age children is simply going to have more influence as it relates to education than a widowed male senior citizen, for instance.   

Amazingly, nearly 50 years after those tragic events in Charlotte, Dorothy Counts received an email from Woody Cooper, a white man who said he was part of that protest from many decades ago. He apologized and they went on to hold joint speaking appearances where they reconciled the past.

Today, some conservatives have chosen their path and the tactics they’ll use. No one is likely to dissuade them from their perspective, just like we can’t stop someone from putting money into a Ponzi scheme if they really think that’s the right thing to do.

But the rest of us—the majority of the people—must take the time to understand what Moms for Liberty is doing, who they’re using to accomplish their goals, and what history will record if we follow their words.

Todd Felts is a teaching associate professor of public relations and advertising at the University of Nevada, Reno. He served as deputy press secretary to Gov. Jim Hunt.