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January 27, 2005

Time for a new movement

There were many events in the Greater Boston area last week celebrating the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That is appropriate since Dr. King spent so many years in Boston as a doctoral student at Boston University.

One cannot celebrate the life of Dr. King without being carried back to the days of the Civil Rights Movement. Men and women from all over this nation bravely put their lives on the line in protests of civil disobedience against the Jim Crow laws which discriminated against African Americans.

Their courage met with success. Now the American racial landscape is vastly changed. Indeed, conditions are by no means perfect, but today there is opportunity where none existed before. White colleges in the South admit blacks and colleges in the North have opened their doors a little wider for minorities, hotels and restaurants deny service to blacks at their peril and a growing number of blacks have positions in corporate executive suites. The February issue of Black Enterprise magazine lists 75 blacks who are CEOs of major corporations or their subsidiaries.

The sturdy ship of civil rights has carried blacks across the turbulent and stormy sea of racial oppression. The journey to achieve full equality is not over, but the ship of civil rights has reached the shore. It is time to disembark and find another strategy and another vehicle for continuing the journey.

The last presidential election should make it clear that African Americans will have to establish coalitions to achieve the desired results at the polls. Even with an almost solid vote for Sen. John Kerry, the black population was too small to turn the tide alone. Continued reliance on the language of the Civil Rights Movement will create in the minds of poor- and working-class whites that the objective is to benefit only racial minorities. It is time to leave the ship.

A good example is how one discusses the issue of poverty in America. The civil rights approach is to protest that 24.3 percent of blacks in this country have incomes below the poverty line while this is true of only 10.5 percent of whites. Blacks then protest, quite justifiably, that it is unconscionable for blacks to suffer in poverty at 2.3 times the rate of whites.

It follows, then, that the political objective is to assure that the rate of black poverty is no greater than the rate for whites. This issue would certainly not inspire the support of poor- and working-class whites. After all, what is in it for them?

However, there is another more universal approach to the issue. One could argue that 12.5 percent of the population of the U.S., a very wealthy nation, ought not suffer in poverty. With 9,108,000 blacks living below the poverty line, blacks would certainly be interested in the issue. And whites with 24,272,000 persons living in poverty should also be concerned.

Although blacks have a higher rate of poverty than whites, the actual number of whites living in poverty is 2.7 times greater than the number of blacks. There is clearly a common interest here if the issue is properly phrased. Dr. King understood this as he tried to mobilize the multi-racial Poor Peoples March at the time of his death.

It is important to remember the importance of the enormous contribution of Dr. King as a leader of the Civil Rights Movement. However, the ship of civil rights has reached the beach. African Americans will need a new vehicle for the battles yet to be waged.

 

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