Jesse Jackson: “The Fight for Civil Rights Continues”

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Defining the proper role and place of the movement for Civil Rights in America has been difficult because of the shorthand that has characterized the 1960s uniquely as that era. In truth, every generation for the past 346 years has been and is still today engaged in the struggle for full citizenship and equality. In fact, in 1830 the first series of national meetings of Colored men began with a civil rights agenda that stood for an end to slavery, the provision of the vote and education and a stake in the new America as full citizens.

Fighting slavery and its progeny was necessary because it had built the foundation for our social space at the bottom of society. It also distorted the project of American democracy and led almost logically to a civil war, and it would also follow that the Constitution should be amended to create a new framework of racial relations based on equality.

Thus the goals in these amendments defined the task of Black leadership and their allies to make them meaningful for subsequent generations.

This year, we observe the 100th anniversary of the Niagara Movement that, in 1905, led to the birth of the NAACP and the civil rights movement of that era. The success of Southern Whites in solidifying control of the states in that region largely eliminated the implementation of the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. Instead, they launched an attack on Blacks, marked by lynchings, rigid segregation, cultural inferiorization, exclusion from politics and other negative outcomes.

This framework of social life for Blacks remained remarkably stable for the first 50 years of the 20th century, but was eventually altered by such factors as Black migration to the North, World War II, the humanitarian principles of the United Nations, Cold War competition and, of course, the superb legal leadership of the NAACP.

The 1954 victory of the NAACP in the case of Brown v. Board of Education initiated a new phase in the civil rights struggle, creating the optimistic possibility that segregation could successfully be confronted in other areas.

The following year, 1955, featured other dramatic events such as President Dwight Eisenhower using federalized troops to protect Black youth attempting to integrate Central High School in Little Rock, Ark., and the death of the young Emmett Till, killed in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, for “ogling” a White woman that stirred emotions nationally.

Just months later, on December 5, 1955, Rosa Parks sat down and refused to go to the back of the bus.

Doubtless, these emotions of both deep victory and deep defeat, contributed to the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which inaugurated another kind of era.

The defense against the discrimination of Blacks in public transportation in Montgomery, Ala., was a flash point for the mobilization of large numbers of ordinary citizens in the South. Led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose genius was articulating the methods and goals of the mobilization, their marching feet became a powerful movement that not only broke open the segregated bus system in Montgomery, it also started “freedom rides” across state lines and sparked the imagination of millions of young people who used similar tactics of nonviolent protest to open lunch counters, swimming pools and other places of public accommodations all over the country.

The power of this movement at every phase in the 1960s, whether in Birmingham, Selma, Nashville, Greenville or even St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit, shook the structure of discrimination in the social realm that had held Blacks in deep poverty, in rigid ghettoes, in subordinate employment, in inferior schools and away from the voting booth. This movement hit its zenith with the March on Washington, led by Dr. King on August 28, 1963.

The Civil Rights Movement challenged the political system, and political parties in particular, and caused their leaders to respond. Thus, Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson were pushed by the winds of this Movement toward the proposition that America could not move forward, either domestically or internationally, without enacting significant policies of social change.

The Civil Rights Movement—an independent “third rail” for social change—caused both Democrats and Republicans to join in the passage of legislation such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act, Title VII (which prohibited discrimination in employment), the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the 1968 Fair Housing Act and, in 1971, led the courts to approve affirmative action in the awarding of federal contracts.

The success of this stage of the Movement built the foundation for the emergence of the Black middle class, which took advantage of the greater openness of society in higher education, in employment, in the awarding of contracts by cities, counties and the federal government. Education was central, and although confined to historically Black colleges and universities in the ’50s and ’60s, Blacks now attend a wide variety of higher education institutions and hold professorships and chairs at some of the nation’s most prestigious institutions.

As a result, in the past 60 years, some marvelous things have happened. Whereas in 1960 at the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement, only 10 percent of Blacks made the average income, 30 percent have such income today. And whereas over half of the Black population was in officially declared poverty in 1960, about one-third exists in that situation today.

Many Blacks have also broken out of the ghetto to reside in housing in many desirable areas, in both cities and metropolitan neighborhoods. In addition, a number of Blacks today also hold positions as managers in some Fortune 500 companies and have risen to high positions in government, including Secretary of State, who is third in succession to the President of the United States.

The goal of Black progress, however, was never just freedom, but full equality and citizenship, and therefore, while we point to the progress which had been made, we must also continue to keep the emerging challenges in view. For example, in 2004, the poverty rate for all citizens was 12 percent, but double that for Blacks at 24 percent, and only 8 percent for Whites. Unemployment in the Black community has also continued to be double that of Whites since the Civil Rights Movement, a structural condition that has led to deep social crises such as poor health, criminal involvement, low educational performance, and other situations which have not been ameliorated. On the other hand, a similar proportion (20 percent) of Black men and White men are now employed in technical, sales and administrative support jobs, but within that category, Whites have 33 percent of the managerial jobs and Blacks only 18 percent. The income gap between Blacks and Whites has remained remarkably stable, with Blacks at about 58 percent (about $20,000) of Whites since 1980; but Blacks spend, on average, 76 percent of what Whites spend. The home ownership gap is also substantial, with nearly half of Blacks owning their homes, compared to 75 percent of Whites.

Perhaps the most serious of the current challenges faced by the Black community—and, therefore, by those who would accept the leadership to foster more achievement—is economic development. Freedom was never the goal; freedom was part of the process of getting to the goal of equality. The Freedom bills of 1964–65 did not delve into the infrastructure of denial of access to capital and economic empowerment for people of color.

The focus on business ownership by Blacks has resulted in some successes. For example, there are more than 350 McDonald franchises owned by Blacks. But in other industries, the lack of inclusion is glaring. Coke, for instance, has been in business for 117 years, yet there is only one Black bottler.

In fact, the exclusion of Blacks from many business opportunities resides in the fact that at the time when franchises were given out in such multi-city, multi-national enterprises, those in line with the resources to obtain them were almost exclusively White. This holds true for radio and TV stations in 1948, and more recently for many of the franchises in automotive and other retail establishments.

This structural discrimination and denial of access to capital has become embedded in the American economic culture, which sees Blacks as essentially consumers, and it grows stronger with the emergence of a conservative culture that’s counter to general Black social advancement. We have disturbed the epidermal level, but the deep structure has not yet been touched. And now, gains of the Civil Rights Movement—relating to economic empowerment, minority procurement and access to capital—are being rolled back. For example, a recent report of the U. S. Civil Rights Commission indicates that the least increase in budget and staff in the past few years has gone to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance, the office that monitors affirmative action contracting with government agencies.

More critically, key anti-discrimination provisions of the landmark Voting Rights Act are now threatened. Forty years after its enactment, this administration and Department of Justice have not aggressively enforced the Act, and have yet to commit to reauthorization of critical enforcement provisions (Sections 203 and Section 5) that give the Act its teeth. That’s why Rainbow/PUSH initiated the march and rally in Atlanta on August 6, the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Voting Rights Act, and along with civil and human rights leadership, took this case back to the streets. Civil rights leadership fought for, and won, the Voting Rights Act in 1965; it must enforce, protect and extend it in 2005.

The reason civil rights activists have been important to Black advancement is that they are not anointed to become cheerleaders for the progress that has been achieved. Rather, they have a responsibility to acknowledge progress and continue to exploit opportunities to shine the light on the unfinished business of equality in every generation. As such, they should not settle for an easy version of freedom, but to make freedom, equality, equity and parity meaningful in terms of achieving full access to the opportunities and resources available to all Americans.

This goal cannot be achieved by leaders alone, but fundamentally by a community that remains disciplined and sensitive to the challenges and does not settle for an easy definition of freedom located in violence, spiritual materialism or the liberation of self. Most important, it will require the willingness to support all relevant strategies, including civil methods of lobbying, demonstrations and other methods of nonviolent social change, to affect public attention to our agenda, an agenda that has generally empowered most of the American people.

So, whether it’s fighting for the right of workers to organize for higher wages and secure benefits, or preventing neighborhood redlining by banks, or pressuring them to abide by the guidelines of the Community Reinvestment Act, or installing more minority pension fund managers and using those funds for community development, or demanding fair corporate investment in communities for their market influence, or promoting more women and minority CEOs in large firms, or opposing trade deals that send jobs abroad, or obtaining more and better franchises and contracts, this is an agenda for economic equity and parity.

In this sense, this generation is a “Civil Rights generation,” and every generation will be one, until real freedom has come.

 

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Source: Ebony, November 2005.