COLUMN ONE : Blacks on the Right: Voices Rise : With the choice of Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court, black conservatives gain recognition. Their guiding principle is self-help.

Economist Walter E. Williams still remembers the time he rose to speak on the need for black self-help and family values and was met by a hail of eggs and tomatoes. In 1982, when Joseph Perkins wrote an article in the Howard University student newspaper criticizing a campus protest, a professor denounced him in class as having composed “the worst fascist rantings since J. Edgar Hoover.”

Today, Williams is a sought-after speaker and syndicated columnist, and Perkins, a journalist, is invited to share daises with the likes of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. “These days, people pay attention,” says Williams, a professor at George Mason University in northern Virginia.

The change reflects the respect that a relatively small corps of conservative black social thinkers has gradually begun to command after years of being taunted, ignored or viewed as mere curiosity. With the nomination of Judge Clarence Thomas to the U.S. Supreme Court, these conservatives have attained a level of prominence that is likely to catalyze a national debate of their ideas--among blacks and also among whites.

It could even enable them to play an influential role in reshaping government policy on poverty and racial problems for years to come.

“Power legitimizes, and that’s what happening here,” said Randall Kennedy, a Harvard University law school professor whose specialties include race relations. “This gives their ideas weight and force.”

Often counted among these theorists, along with Williams and Perkins, are economist Thomas Sowell, writer Shelby Steele, social activist Robert L. Woodson and political economist Glenn C. Loury. While several of them disdain the conservative label, they hold views on poverty and racial issues that are anathema to virtually all civil rights groups and Establishment black leaders.

Rejecting the most basic assumptions of liberalism, they contend that standard anti-poverty programs rely too heavily on government assistance, portray blacks as helpless victims, discourage personal initiative and erode family cohesion.

“In the ‘20s and ‘30s, before the big social programs of our age, Harlem was safe enough that families could sleep on their fire escapes in the summer,” Williams said. “As recently as the ‘60s, 80% of black families had two parents.”

These conservatives are viewed by many of their fellow blacks as opportunists, sometimes even as betrayers of their race. But their views spring from a philosophy of black self-help that dates from at least the turn of the century, when it was articulated by black leaders such as Booker T. Washington and George Washington Carver.

Black conservatives say they reflect social views that many blacks share, that these values show up repeatedly in polls of blacks on issues such as the family and religion.

These thinkers argue that affirmative action programs devalue blacks’ true accomplishments and foster resentment among whites, that they produce a backlash that hurts minorities. Instead of handouts, they contend, the poor should be “empowered” with the kind of responsibilities that encourage personal initiative.

For example, they support the policies advocated by Jack Kemp, secretary of Housing and Urban Development, that would enable public housing tenants to own and maintain the homes they occupy. They argue for government “vouchers,” or tax subsidies, to enable poor people to send their children to any school they like, including private institutions.

Like Woodson, whose National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise seeks to “privatize” government housing projects, many hope to unleash the power of the free market to improve the lot of blacks.

Woodson points to the growing black middle class as proof that racism is not an insurmountable barrier. “If discrimination were the only culprit, why aren’t all suffering equally?” he asks.

Through the 1980s, the black conservatives wrote opinion-page articles, appeared on TV talk shows and traveled the lecture circuit. Yet they remained on the fringe of public debate and got relatively little attention from the general public.

Now that is likely to change because of the heightened visibility that Thomas, from his position on the court if confirmed, will give their views.

Thomas showed during his tenure as chief of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that he will not shrink from confronting those who hold a different view of racial issues. Indeed, if his past actions are any guide, he is likely to take them on at every opportunity. If seated as a justice, he may begin articulating these views in October, when the court, in its new term, will attempt to determine whether a suburban Atlanta school district and Mississippi’s public university system have done enough to dismantle the structures of segregation.

Some analysts say the rise of the conservative theorists comes at a propitious moment, because the country is looking for new ways to combat poverty, unemployment, drug dependency, poor schooling and inadequate housing. Thus they may sway the debate on current ideas such as low-tax “enterprise zones,” work-fare programs, public-housing tenant management, school choice systems, welfare reform and the “war on drugs.”

Norman Ornstein, an analyst with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, contends that the public already is turning against affirmative action programs, but says the louder voice of black conservatives may give public opinion “just one more little push.”

Black liberal critics counter that the solutions offered by conservatives are not enough to overcome the historic wrongs inflicted on blacks. They say that the conservatives overlook the extent to which government help has contributed to the success of black Americans--including some of the conservative thinkers themselves.

But if they sometimes denounce the conservatives as Uncle Toms, liberal blacks seem, in one sense, to be moving in the same basic direction through their increasing emphasis on self-help.

Last year, many took note when Benjamin L. Hooks, NAACP national director, declared a “moratorium on excuses” for the problems of black Americans. “No longer can we proffer polite . . . reasons why black America cannot do more itself,” Hooks said.

Loury, a political economist at Harvard, says that while civil rights leaders insist they have always endorsed the concept of self-help, now “they’re sure talking about it a lot more than they did 10 years ago.”

He said the influence of black conservatives is also evident in the more candid discussion among mainstream groups of the problems of teen pregnancy, violence and drug use among blacks.

It is clear that conservatives still represent only a minority of black opinion, and there is little evidence so far that their numbers are increasing.

In the 1988 presidential election, about 7% of black voters contacted in Los Angeles Times exit polls described themselves as Republicans, while in other Times polls about one of every five blacks said they were conservatives.

Last fall, conservatives exulted when black Republican Gary Franks of Connecticut was elected to the House of Representatives. He was the first black Republican elected in 56 years--and there are 26 black Democrats in Congress.

Still, if conservatives’ numbers are small, many blacks say their influence is growing. And they note that the selection of Thomas for the high court has invigorated a debate of their ideas among blacks.

“Inevitably, there’s been more discussion of the kind of possibilities Thomas represents, and these ideas, which (among blacks) have for so long been verboten ,” said writer Steele, who is a professor at San Jose State University.

These ideas may have their greatest appeal among younger, middle-class blacks who did not witness the civil rights triumphs of the ‘60s and may be more likely to view the standard anti-poverty programs as failures. The black middle class has grown rapidly; one sociologist, Bart Landry of the University of Maryland, says that group now includes 45% of all blacks.

Many African-Americans have had only the briefest flirtation with conservative ideas, as so many turn-of-the-century blacks listened briefly to the self-help appeals of Booker T. Washington, then embraced NAACP founder W. E. B. DuBois, who urged strong government action.

And they do not always listen patiently. Last year, when Perkins joined Jackson and Speaker Brown at a black journalists’ convention for a discussion of whether black elected officials were targets of a law-enforcement conspiracy, he was repeatedly interrupted by jeers and laughter.

Yet the debate continues, often as an undercurrent, usually out of the hearing of whites.

It was evident at the NAACP convention last week in Houston, where the merits of the conservative views were argued in corridors and dining rooms, and at cocktail parties.

In these private conversations, many acknowledged they were troubled by Thomas’ nomination and by much of his thinking, but felt sympathy for his opinions about the need for self-help and new approaches. Also, younger, middle-class blacks voiced unhappiness over what some consider the stagnant leadership of black civil rights organizations.

Christina Montague, a 37-year-old county commissioner from Ann Arbor, Mich., lamented that the NAACP convention did not offer new ideas on how blacks can gain economic power. “I want to know about economic development,” she said. “I will live in the ghetto as long as I can control the jobs, the stores, the economic vitality. . . . There’s nothing here for us to learn.”

W. Gregory Wims, a businessman from Montgomery County, Md., said that fellow blacks tend to be so suspicious of his conservative views that he always stresses his commitment to civil rights and his dues-paying membership in the NAACP when he airs his opinions. He said he was convinced that nearly a third of those at the convention agreed with Thomas but were afraid to voice their views.

“It’s tough to be black and a Republican,” he said. “We’ve been in the closet, but over the next few years, more and more of us are going to come out.”

Thoughts From Black Conservatives

Clarence Thomas, 43, U.S. appeals court judge:

“The economy is great for blacks who have been fortunate enough to have used the educational and preparation opportunities available in this society. . . . My unlettered grandfather knew the answer: Study hard, work to improve yourself and always do what’s right.”

Thomas Sowell, 61, economist, Hoover Institution, Stanford University:

In any country that has adopted them, racially preferential policies have “tended to become permanent and to widen their scope . . . within the designated groups, benefits have gone disproportionately to the already more fortunate . . . they have increased polarization, with the non-preferred group reacting with political backlash. . . .”

Walter E. Williams, 55, economist, George Mason University:

“It’s a good thing, in a sense, there’s an attack on quotas, because it will help a lot of us disarm racists. . . . A lot of whites couldn’t get a scholarship under any circumstances, but a racist will be able to exploit the situation by saying, ‘You weren’t able to get one because they’re giving them to blacks. . . .’ ”

Shelby Steele, 45, writer and professor, San Jose State University:

“Under affirmative action, the quality that earns us preferential treatment is an implied inferiority. However this inferiority is explained--and it is easily enough explained by the myriad deprivations that grew out of our oppression--it is still inferiority.”

Glenn C. Loury, 42, professor of political economy, Harvard University:

“It will sound paradoxical to many that affirmative action is not in the interest of blacks. . . . But in the longer term, preferential treatment is inconsistent with blacks’ attainment of equal status in society as independent contributors respected for their contribution. . . .”

Joseph Perkins, 31, editorial writer, San Diego Union:

“It has been argued that enterprise zones’ tax incentives would deprive the federal Treasury of revenue, but what income is the government reaping from these areas now? Enterprise zones would bring the Treasury some revenue, spur capital formation and pare unemployment. . . .”

Robert L. Woodson, 54, director, National Center for Neighborhood Enterprise:

“We see the (economic) gap narrowing between college-educated blacks and whites in two-parent households, but conditions have not improved for low-income blacks . . . and the big issue is not whether we increase or decrease the budget, it is how to be more creative and innovative in policy.”