The Wrongologist

There had been
earlier marches, but the 1963 March on
Washington for Jobs and Freedom was on a scale so much larger than
anything that had come before that it is rightly thought of as a singular moment: An event so significant that the history of the civil rights movement can be
measured in terms of before the March, and after the March.

The day is
remembered almost exclusively for MLK’s “Dream” speech, famously delivered to
the throngs from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

And as Rick Interlope writes in The Nation, in a country that
ignores its history, the march is remembered, and mostly, it is remembered
clearly. The day before the march, white America was very nervous about what
would happen if hundreds of thousands marched in DC. The day after, many in
America had bough into the dream.

(far left) Bayard Rustin, march organizer

Life Magazine reports that “I Have a Dream” had
been used before by MLK. He had delivered a speech to 25,000 people in Detroit
several months before that included several sections and phrases that he would
include, verbatim, in his address on August 28, 1963.

 

A. Phillip Randolph was the nominal head of
the March on Washington, but it was really
organized and managed by Bayard Rustin. Randolph led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, the first predominantly
black labor union. In the early civil-rights
movement,
Randolph led the March on Washington Movement, which convinced President
Franklin D. Roosevelt to issue Executive
Order 8802
in 1941, banning discrimination in the defense industries during World War II.  After the war, Randolph pressured President Harry
S. Truman to issue Executive
Order 9981
in 1948, ending segregation in the armed services.

Dr. King
became a leader of the movement post-march.

At the
core of MLK’s speech was a simple, radical, but compelling argument. King
explains that the demonstrators have come “to cash a check.” America’s
constitution and declaration of independence were:

His
argument was that the demonstrators were asking merely for the rights
guaranteed to all Americans by the country’s founding documents. Segregationists,
therefore, were not just bullies and bigots; they were failures as Americans,
because they misunderstood or ignored
the country’s fundamental premise.

King presented
his “dream” as the American dream. Dr. King’s speech laid out four major
grievances:

• Discrimination
  by private businesses and local government

• Barriers
  that kept black Americans from voting

• Unfair
  treatment by police

• Lack
  of social mobility and economic opportunity

Dr. King
said:

The Civil
Rights Act of 1964 directly addressed the first grievance. Signed by Lyndon
Johnson 10 months after the march, it banned businesses from refusing to serve members of
the public on the basis of race; it prohibited the denial of access to public
facilities on the basis of race; it authorized the attorney-general to sue
local authorities to force school desegregation; it banned discrimination by
the recipients of federal funds and it outlawed discrimination by businesses
employing more than 25 people, creating the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) to respond to such complaints.

The Voting
Rights Act of 1965 addressed King’s second grievance. It outlawed poll taxes,
literacy tests and other practices designed to prevent blacks from voting. Until
key sections were struck down by the SCOTUS in June 2013, it gave the Justice
Department and federal courts the power to veto proposed changes to voting
procedures in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination.

The acts
had lasting political effects: In 1963, Congress had five black members, all
representatives from northern and western cities. Today, roughly one in ten
members (40) of the House is black; they come from 25 states and territories. In
the 2012 presidential election, black voter turnout exceeded that of any other
racial category.

Little at
the time was done politically to address the economic issues raised at the march,
which included a call for a minimum wage, an end to discrimination in federally
funded housing and that “…every person be given training and work with
dignity to defeat unemployment and automation”.  

Measured
against conditions at the time of Dr. King’s speech, black American have made
real progress:

• In
  1966, the earliest year for which comparable data is available, 42% of
  African-Americans lived in poverty; in 2011, 28% did, while the national poverty rate for all races was 15%

• The median family income for blacks
  was $22,266 in 1963. It was $40,495 in 2012

• In 1963, 25.7% of blacks age 25 and older had completed at least four years of
  high school, while in 2012, 85.0% of blacks age 25 and older
  had completed at least four years of high school

• In 1963, 365,000 blacks had at least a bachelor’s degree. In 2012, that number
  had grown to 5.1 million

But, measured
against the progress of whites in America, black progress looks less
impressive. Pew Research reports several
areas where the gaps have widened: 

The
bursting housing bubble took a far greater toll on black families than whites,
reducing their median wealth, according to the Pew Research study, by 53%
between 2005 and 2009 (adjusted for inflation). Over the same period white
median wealth fell by just 16%. In 2009 more than one-third of black households
had zero or negative net worth, compared with 15% of white households. In 2011
the median household wealth (comprising cash, investments, homes, cars and
other assets) for America’s white families was $110,500. For blacks it was $6,314.

PBS’ Report on Race reminds us that the
American government provided low-interest loans to returning veterans and other
white Americans after World War II. This created a boom in home ownership and
helped suburbanize America; but blacks, 125,000 of whom served
overseas in WWII, were excluded from participating. At the same time,
the government was building high-rise public housing for minorities in inner
cities. The segregation in America between a largely dark inner city and a
largely white suburban community is not something that just magically happened
from market forces. It was part of government policy in the 1950’s and 1960’s. The
chart below shows that less has changed in population above the poverty line or
in home ownership:

The chart
below shows that the gaps have narrowed in life expectancy and high school
completion. Interestingly, black voter turnout exceeds that of whites:

The
civil-rights era has not ended: Blacks remain likelier than whites to lack
jobs, be poor, get arrested and serve time in prison. Residential segregation
of blacks from other races still persists. After years of narrowing, the gap
between black and white median incomes has widened since 2000, and the gap in
household wealth is enormous.

But the job
of fixing what remains may now fall to different hands. For the past 75 years, the responsibility for
ending segregation and repealing racist laws was mainly the federal government’s.
But with a divided government, with a conservative Supreme Court, the ability
of the federal government to make a difference is much less today.

On the other hand, the federal government’s attack on the
Bill of Rights impacts all races and blunting that attack may become our next
“dream”. We sheep must again become wolves, or as 73 years old Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said at a rally
yesterday:

He is one
man, he is speaking of only one of the Bill of Rights.

There is so
far to go, just to get back to where we were. The fight is never over.

The
Wrongologist believes it will take another non-violent era, a mass effort by
the people to take this country back from the plutocrats and corporatists.