150 years’ struggle amidst endless wars and global protests
Excerpt, minor editing by
Carolyn Bennett
Maryland activist Steven Strauss reflects on present and parallels
50 years from Washington March.
Dream for justice and equality must go beyond fragile reforms; envision capitalism's replacement with the revolutionary integration of free people into a society that thrives
not on [bigotry and racialism] ─ but on aid and human solidarity.
“
|
…Before the modern civil rights movement, political
inequality was maintained through Jim Crow segregation according to race,” Steven Strauss recalls. “Economic discrimination in jobs, housing, education, and treatment by police
and courts was [in America] the written and unwritten law of the land.”
 |
| Boston, Massachusetts performs Jim Crow 1847 |
Jim Crow laws were state and local
laws in the United States [America] enacted between 1876
and 1965. They mandated de jure (in law) racial segregation in all public
facilities in Southern states of the former Confederacy, with, starting in
1890, a ‘separate but equal’ status for African Americans.
The separation in practice led to
conditions for African Americans that tended to be inferior to those provided
for Anglo Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.
 |
| Lancaster, Ohio makes its point 1938 |
De jure (in law) segregation mainly applied
to the Southern United States.
Northern segregation was generally
de facto (in fact, practice, custom), with patterns of segregation in housing
enforced by covenants, bank lending practices, and job discrimination,
including discriminatory union practices for decades.
Some examples of Jim Crow laws are
the segregation of public schools, public places, and public transportation,
and the segregation of restrooms, restaurants, and drinking fountains for
whites and blacks. The U.S. military was also segregated.
 |
| Durham, North Carolina makes its point 1940 |
These Jim Crow Laws followed the 1800–1866 Black Codes, which had
previously restricted the civil rights and civil liberties of African Americans
with no pretense of equality.
State-sponsored school segregation
was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1954
in Brown v. Board of Education. Generally, the remaining Jim Crow laws were
overruled by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. [Wikipedia note]
 |
| 50-year commemoration Marchers on Washington, D.C. August 28, 2013 |
“The civil rights movement formally eliminated political Jim
Crow but not the capitalist economy,” Steven Strauss observes; therefore, to the present day, “deep
economic inequities persist.”
Profit takers and limp labor block century-and-a-half struggle
“A
|
system rooted in supremacy of profit has historically been the
brick wall blocking the political struggle for freedom. The post-Civil War
Reconstruction program that strained to overcome monstrous consequences of
slavery and the 1960s civil rights struggle hit that brick wall.
The 1963 March on Washington ─ shouting that liberation was yet
a distant dream ─ was to the Reconstruction Era what the 2013 commemoration March
on Washington was to the Civil Rights Movement: impassioned protests in the
face of “inadequate progress in the pursuit of freedom.”
Big Labor is
also stuck in backward ways. Paralleling
the 1963 era, Strauss says, the 2013 March on Washington found “limited
mobilization of rank-and-file labor.”
What needs to happen, he says, is a sea change: “a U.S. labor
movement” that launches a “full-out organization for full employment through
public works programs and a reduction of the workweek to 30 hours without
cutting pay”; a “revival of affirmative action policies to reverse generations
of discrimination”; a “rebuilding of inner cities” by ensuring that corporations
pay proper taxes, and a dislodging of the strangle hold imposed by the “war
budget” of the Pentagon. 
Solidarity beyond the dream
“The dream for justice and equality,” Strauss says, “needs
to go beyond fragile reforms and instead envision the replacement of capitalism
with the revolutionary integration of free people into a society that thrives
not on [bigotry and racialism] ─ but on aid and human solidarity.”
Sources and notes
“An unfinished revolution: 50 years after the March on
Washington (Black America — Part III in a series)” by Steven Strauss, October 2013
Freedom Socialist, http://www.socialism.com/drupal-6.8/?q=node/2581
Tens of thousands of spirited
people, mostly African Americans, descended on the nation’s capital on August
24 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs
and Freedom ─ Dr. Martin Luther King’s epic ‘I have a dream’ speech still
reverberating as were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawing segregation, the
Voting Rights Act of 1965 officially prohibiting voting discrimination.
Image:
Demonstrators gather in D.C. on August 28, 2013, to
commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom. Photo: Steven Strauss / FS
Steven Strauss is a political activist in Baltimore,
Maryland, who attended the 2013 March in Washington in D.C.
Jim Crow brief, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Crow_laws
ANTIWAR MARCHES UK LAST WEEKEND IN SEPTEMBER 2013
Stop the War Coalition
International Anti-War Conference:
U.S. and allies pushing for another war in the Middle East; attack on Syria
could cause a conflagration across the region. Antiwar action and opinion is
making its mark but pressure for Western military interventions is growing; Obama
is sending more military resources to encircle China; and while the Middle East
remains the U.S.’s main preoccupation, the West is ramping up its military
presence on the African continent. This conference is a vital opportunity to analyze
and debate the fast changing and dangerous situation and plan how best to step
up opposition to the West’s imperial wars: International Anti-War Conference, Stop
the War Coalition 30 November 2013, Emmanuel Centre, Marsham Street, London
SW1P 3DW, 10 a.m.-5 p. m. http://www.stopwar.org.uk/events/international-antiwar-conference
Manchester demonstration:
This Sunday 29 September tens of thousands will join the TUC march on the Tory
Party conference in Manchester to defend the NHS and challenge austerity. Stop
the War is organizing an anti-war block with CND on the demonstration. Here are
five reasons why you should be there. The anti-war block will be assembling in
block ‘J’ with the main demonstration at 11a.m., Sunday 29 September Liverpool
Road, Manchester M3 4FP. Look out for the ‘cut war not welfare’ placards. “Why
Stop the War is marching to the Tory Party Conference this Sunday, Chris
Nineham 25 September 2013: “Five reasons to march to the Tory Party Conference
this Sunday” http://www.stopwar.org.uk/news/why-stop-the-war-is-marching-to-the-tory-party-conference-this-sunday
_____________________________________________Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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