Response to Anonymous

Monday afternoon Anonymous posted this comment on the site:

“How can you believe that any of the civil rights leaders today ae doing anything for cause. I was in Atlanta two weeks ago and saw the film American Blackout.
This is a tragedy. Slowly but surely we have regressed back to pre-intergration. When are we going to wake up. We have now gotten middle-class, rich and arrogant. We have forgotten our cause. Soon we will be picking cotton in fields again. I would suggest every black person to see American Blackout and then tell me whether or not the Civil Rights leaders of today is fihting for our cause.
Link to trailer on you tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8_3Lk3x8fA”

Dear Anonymous,

It looks like “American Blackout” is mostly about voter suppression and may be well worth the price of admission. However, I am interpreting your comments to be even broader than just voter registration. It seems to me that you are questioning the state of the on-going struggle for justice in all areas and that you want to know what our leaders are doing about it. The twin issues – Where are we and where do we go from here – are important ones that we need to address; thanks for bringing them up.

Don’t feel you are alone in your sentiments. Alice Walker, writing just ten years after the March on Washington voiced the same frustrations you are now. She wrote:

“I think Medgar Evers and Martin Luther King, Jr. would be dismayed by the lack of radicalism in the new black middle class, and discouraged to know that majority of the black people helped most by the Movement of the sixties has abandoned itself to the pursuit of cars, expensive furniture, large houses, and the finest scotch.”

If we are to accept that your and her sentiments are true, I want to know, what do we do now?

I think we need to identify who are our leaders and then identify what they have not done that we wish they had done. Most black politicians are not civil rights leaders at all and would not like to be categorized as such. They are politicians who represent broad constituencies on a wide swath of topics. We cannot look to Barak Obama, Jesse Jackson, Jr. or Harold Ford, Jr. to do or say the sort of things we might expect from a civil rights leader. To be sure, Congresswoman Maxine Waters does often operate more like a civil rights leader, but she also represents a much more homogenous (and safe) district. Waters also does not have higher political aspirations. Her decision to act as a rabble-rouser is refreshing, but will likely not be imitated by the younger crop of politicians who want to climb the rungs of political power.

Maxine Waters aside, politicians are generally not the right focal point for civil rights leadership. The leaders of the Movement did not operate from State Houses or from Congress. Those who did, such as Adam Clayton Powell in New York City, were constrained in the amount of rabble-rousing they could support or even allow. When civil rights groups were planning to protest the 1960 Democratic National Convention Powell worked hard to convince the activists to stay away. Roy Wilkins (NAACP), Whitney Young (Urban League), James Farmer (CORE) and Martin Luther King (SCLC) were leaders of organizations dedicated to the advancement of civil rights so they were freer to operate without considering their re-election prospects, their ability to make deals on unrelated issues, or their standing in a political party.

After leaders, there is the question of strategy. The Civil Rights Movement relied heavily on the bastions of white supremacy to create a crisis that would shock the nation into action on behalf of aggrieved blacks. But keep in mind that even Martin Luther King came to realize that the broad coalition that supported him after the atrocities in Birmingham, Selma and Mississippi were only in favor of a cessation of violence, not equality. That is to say that most Americans only wanted an end to racial terrorism, they did not support radical action to bring about racial equality.

I think that it is really up to us, you and me in this generation, to take action. It would be greedy to ask more of Andy Young and his generation. They are in and entering their 70s. The politicians can only focus on staying in office and making the cover of magazines. We must become our own leaders. Our real quandary is, what can we do that will improve the lives of our people and how do we convince anyone to care? You saw the movie “American Blackout,” what did it suggest? What do you suggest? My current small contribution is writing this blog. I would love to do more, but I haven’t yet come across an organization that I find compelling and I don’t have a clear idea about what an effective organization would do. Does anyone out there have any suggestions? Let’s get this ball rolling, stop complaining and start acting.