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From Protest to Politics: Future of the Civil Rights Movement. 1965

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From Protest to Politics: Future of the Civil Rights Movement. 1965 NO.1 IN A SERIES OF OCCASIONAL PAPERS FromProtest toPolitics: The Future of the Civil Rights Movement By Bayard Rustin Reprinted from Commentary February, 1965 by the LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 112 E. 19 Street New York, N . Y. 10003 FROM PROTEST TO POLITICS: THE FUTURE OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT BAYARD RUSTIN I To attempt to disentangle these three strands is to do violence to reality. David Danzig's percep­ HE DECADE spanned by the 1954 Su­ tive article, "The Meaning of Negro Strategy,"· T preme Coun decision on school de­ correctly saw in the Birmingham events the segregation and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 will victory of the concept of collective struggle over undoubtedly he recor'led as the period in which individual achievement as the road to Negro the legal foundations of racism in America were freedom. And Birmingham remains the un~ destroyed. To be sure, pockets of resistance matched symbol of g-rass·roots protest involving remain; but it would be hard to quarrel with the all strata of the black community. It was also in assertion that the elaborate legal structure of this most industrialized of Southern cities that the segregation and discrimination, particularly in single·issue demands of the movement's classical relation to public accommodations, has virLUa lly stage gave way to the "package deal." No longer coll apsed. On the other hand, without making were Negroes satisfied with integrating lunch light of the human sacrifices involved in the counters. They now sought advances in employ­ direct-action taClics (sit-ins, freedom rides, and ment, housing, school integration, police protec~ the rest) that were so instrumental to this tion, and so forth. achievement, we must recognize that in de­ Thus, the movement in the South began to segregating public accommodations, we affected auack areas of discrimination which were not so instiLUlions whidl are relatively peripheral both remote from the Northern experience as were to the American socio-economic order and to the Jim Crow lunch counters. At the same time, the fundamental conditions of life of the Negro interrelationship of these apparently distinct people. In a highly industrialized, 20th-century areas became increasingly evident. \Vhat is the civilization, we hit Jim Crow precisely where it value of winning access to public accommoda~ was most anachronistic, dispensable. and vulner~ tions for those who lack money to use them? able-in hotels, lunch counters, terminals, librar~ The minute the movement faced this question, it ies, swimming pools, and the like. For in these was compelled to expand its vision beyond race forms, Jim Crow does impede the flow of relations to economic relations, including the commerce in the broadest sense: it is a nuisance role of education in modern society. And what in a society on the move (and on the make). Not also became clear is that all these interrelated surprisingly, therefore, it was the most mobiJity~ problems, by their very nature, are not soluble conscious and relatively liberated groups in the by private, voluntary efforts but require govern~ Negro community-Iower·middle·class college Stll~ men[ action- or politics. Already Southern dents-who launched the attack that brought demonstrators had recognized that the most down this imposing but hollow structure. effective way to s!rike at the police b"utality they The term "classical" appears especially apt for suffered from was by getting rid of the local this phase of the civil rights movement. But in sheriff-and that meant political action, which in the few years that have passed since the first flush turn meant, a nd still means, political action with~ of sit~ins, several developments have taken place in the Democralic party where the only meaning­ that have complicated .matters enormously. One ful primary contests in the South are fought. is the shifting focus of the movement in the And so, in Mississippi, thanks largely to the South, symboliled by Birmingham; another is the leadership of Bob Moses, a turn toward political spread of the revolution to the North; and the action has been taken. ~1ore than voter registra~ third, common to the other two, is the expansion tion is involved here. A conscious bid for of the movement's base in the Negro community. political power is being made, and in the course of that effort a tactical shift is being effected: BAYARO RUSTIN, who organized lhe March on Washing Lon direct~action techniques are being subordinated to and has been a dose associaLe or Martin Luther King, is a strategy calling for the building of community widely recognized. as the leading Lactician o[ the civil rights movement. Thi.s is his first appearance in COMMENTARY. ·COMMENTARY, February 1964. COMMENTAR Y/FEBRUARY 65 institutions or power bases. Clearly, the implica­ presence in this country, were forbidden by law tions of this shift reach faT beyond Mississippi. to read or wri teo Second. Jews have a long What began as a protest movement is being history of family stability, the importance of challenged to translate itself into a political which in terms of aspiration and self-image is movement. Is this the right course? And if it is, obvious. The Negro family structure was totally can the transformation be accomplished? destroyed by slavery and with it the possibility of cultural transmission (the right of Negroes to II marry and rear children is barely a century old). HE VERY decade which has witnessed Third, Jews are white and have the option of T the decline of legal Jim Crow has relinquishing their cultural-religious identity, in­ also seen the rise of de facto segregation in our termarrying, passing, etc. Negroes, or at least the most fundamental socio-economic institutions. overwhelming majority of them, do not have this More Negroes are unemployed today than in option. There is also a fourth, vulgar reason. If 1954, and the unemployment gap between the the Jewish and Negro communities are not races is wider. The median income of Negroes comparable in terms of education, family has dropped from 57 per cent to 54 per cent of structure, and color, it is also true that their that of whites. A higher percentage of Negro respective economic roles bear little resem­ workers is now concentrated in jobs vulnerable blance. to automation than was the case len years ago. This matter of economic role brings us to the More Negroes attend de facto segregated sehools greater problem-the fact that we are moving today than when the Supreme Court handed into an era in which the natural functioning of down its famous decision; while school integra­ the market does not by itself ensure every man tion proceeds at a snail's pace in the South, the with will and ambition a place in the productive number of Northern schools with an excessive process. The immigrant who came to this country proportion of minority youth proliferates. And during the late 19th and early 20th centuries behind this is the continuing growth of racial entered a society which was expanding territori­ slums, spreading over our central cities and ally and/ or economically. It was then possible to trapping Negro youth in a milieu which, what­ start at the bottom, as an unskilled or semi-skilled ever its legal definition, sows an unimaginable worker. and move up the ladder, acquiring new demoralization. Again, legal niceties aside, a res­ skills along the way. Especially was t1,is true ident of a racial ghetto lives in segregated when industrial unionism was burgeoning, giving housing, and more Negroes fall into this category new dignity and higher wages to organized work­ than ever before. ers. Ttxlay the situation has ehanged. We are not These are the facts of life whieh generate expanding territorially, the western frontier is frustration in the Negro community and settled, labor organizing has leveled off, our rate challenge the civil rights movement. At issue, of economic growth has been stagnant for a after all, is not civil Tights, strictly speaking, but decade. And we are in the midst of" a social and economic conditions. Last summer's technological revolution which is altering the riots were not race riots; they were outbursts of fundamental structure of the labor force, class aggression in a society where class and color destroying unskilled and semi-skilled jobs-jobs in definitions are converging disastrously. How can whieh Negroes are disproportionately con­ the (perhaps misnamed) civil rights movement centrated. deal with this problem? Whatever the pace of this teehnological Before trying to answer, let me first insist that revolution may be, the direction is clear: the the task of the movement is vastly complicated lower rungs 01 the economic ladder are being by the failure of many whites of good will to lopped off. This means that an individual will understand the nature of our problem. There is no longer be able to start at the bottom and a widespread assumption that the removal of work his way up; he will have to start in the artificial racial harriers should result in the middle or on top, and hold on tight. It will not automatic integration of ' the Negro into all even be enough to have certain specific skills, aspects of American life. This myth is fostered for many skilled jobs are also vulnerable to by facile analogies with the experience of various automation. A broad educational background, ethnic immigrant groups, particularly the Jews. permitting vocational adaptability and flexibility, But the analogies with the Jews do not hold for seems more imperative than ever. We live in a three simple but profound reasons. First, Jews society where, as Secretary of Labor Willard have a long history as a literate people, a Wirtz puts it, machines have the equivalent of a resource which has afforded them opportunities high school diploma.
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