PROTESTS WITHOUT INTEGRITY WON'T SUCCEED

Since the civil rights marches of the 1960s and the student protests of the Vietnam War era, civil disobedience in this country generally has taken a more civilized approach. This has been good news for law firms whose aid has been enlisted in numerous court battles over issues such as workers' rights and minority discrimination.

Looking back, there are few people left who think blacks didn't have a right to sit anywhere they wanted on city buses in the Deep South. And it's hard to remember an era when blacks and other minorities found it difficult, if not impossible, to register to vote. Nowadays voter registration is pushed by federal mandates, even on those who have little desire to participate in the democratic process.

Not all government efforts to give minority groups an artificial advantage have resulted in the intended positive results. Affirmative-action programs and most quota systems have fallen by the wayside, not so much because they failed, but because they created other inequities.

This week, an organization purporting to represent the concerns of minority contractors organized a demonstration to shut down I-70 in St. Louis. The intent was to draw attention to what the minority contractors believe are low levels of minority hiring in high-paying highway construction jobs. Along St. Louis-area highways, there are detours and closed lanes everywhere.

The Missouri Department of Transportation says it is more than exceeding federal requirements for minority hiring and minority contractors for the projects. A lawyer representing the minority contractors says the federal requirement is higher than the level cited by MoDOT.

Interestingly, the I-70 protest, which closed the highway Monday morning for about an hour during which 125 protesters were arrested, was pushed by the Rev. Al Sharpton of New York, a civil-rights activist whose interest in highway-construction hiring in Missouri is questionable, to say the least.

Talks were held before the protest involving the highest officials of state government. At one point, there appeared to be an agreement on both sides -- until the Rev. Mr. Sharpton realized there would be no photo ops or sound bites unless the protest came off as planned.

Leaders of the protest promised 10,000 protesters. Some 300 showed up. Now protest organizers say they may stage another highway shutdown during rush-hour traffic.

It will take the perspective of future years to determine if this week's highway protest served any useful purpose other than to make a mess for rush-hour commuters. From today's vantage point, however, it seems good-faith negotiations were producing positive results. Unless those who say they represent minority contractors are willing to honor the commitments made in talks with highway officials and others, they aren't likely to be taken seriously when they go ahead and create highway turmoil anyway.