As people gather in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, demands of jobs, freedom and an end to
racial segregation are as important today as they were a half century ago.
“We are on the threshold of significant breakthrough, and
the greatest weapon is the mass demonstration,” King told a close friend in a
telephone call wiretapped by the F.B.I. according to the NY Times review of UW Madison historian William P. Jones’ new book,
The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom
and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights.
A recent interview of Jones and Gary Younge, author of The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr.’s Dream on Democracy Now! provides valuable background on
the March that is left out of most newspaper stories and school history books.
Teachers will find the interview (like much on Democracy Now’s daily news
programming) a great resource for their classrooms.
The 1963 March on Washington was the largest mass civil
rights protest in the nation’s history. When marchers returned to their hometowns,
they carried the energy into local protests demanding an end to segregation in
public facilities and in favor of full voting rights.
In Milwaukee, those returning from the March on Washington
infused their energy into the growing movements against school and housing
segregation and policy brutality. As Barbara Miner relates in her book, Lessons from the Heartland, during King’s
visit to Milwaukee a few months after the March on Washington,
he publicly addressed the issue
of Milwaukee’s schools and agreed that residential segregation should not be
used “as an excuse for perpetuating de facto segregation” in schools. In a
prescient comment, he noted that “honesty impels me to admit that the school
problem cannot be solve permanently until the housing problem is solved.”
The Milwaukee movement took to the streets. A campaign by
MUSIC – Milwaukee United School Integration Committee – over the next two years
included more than ten demonstrations against intact bussing and more than
“sixty people arrested as they formed human chains, sat, knelt or stood in
front of schools buses, went limp, and were tossed into patrol wagons, all to
the tune of freedom songs.”
Two hundred consecutive days of open housing marches
followed in 1967 and 1968, led by Father Groppi, Alderwoman Vel Phillips, and
the NAACP Youth Council as they march across the 16th Street
viaduct, at times being met by thousands of hostile and violent whites.
Mass demonstrations do not automatically lead to success. But
they provide a time-honored way to promote activism and to invigorate broader
social movements. For instance, it took two years after the March on Washington
before the 1965 Voting Rights passed — and then years more of organizing to
secure the right for all people.
A generation later, conservative forces are challenging
voting rights through measures such as voter ID and an end to same day
registration. It is an important lesson that the struggle for fundamental
rights is ever-unfolding.
The ebb and flow of history was also evident in the populist
uprising in Wisconsin in the spring of 2011. While the mass protests were
unsuccessful in stopping Act 10, they were an unprecedented showing of
grassroots political power; tens of thousands of citizens increased their
understanding of how corporate power can corrode democracy. The current chapter
in Wisconsin history is far from over.
Mass demonstrations, by their very nature, rely on
grassroots support. To be successful, they must be grounded in political
organizing that respects the essential role of everyday people in building a
better world.
In September, Milwaukee area people will have the
opportunity participate in two marches and rallies that continue M. L. King’s
tradition of popular protest.
Milwaukeeans will take to the streets on Labor Day,
September 2. A coalition of labor unions, including the MTEA, has organized two
marches (one from the north side and one from the south side) to meet with a
picnic and family celebration at Zeidler Park. For details click here.
Then on September 21 Milwaukeeans will again march across
the 16th Street Viaduct in under the slogan “Public Education is a
Civil Right.” A coalition of over 50 organizations and community leaders,
including the MTEA, is sponsoring the march drawing attention to the need for
full support of public schools as the foundation of multiracial democracy. For
a flyer click here and for list of sponsors, details and to sign up go to the Facebook
page PublicEducationIsACivilRight.
Dr. King’s statement about mass demonstrations being a great
weapon is as true today as when the F.B.I. wiretapped him saying it a half
century ago.
Let’s continue King’s tradition in Washington D.C. on August
24, and then in Milwaukee on Labor Day, September 2 and on September 21 at the
Public Education is a Civil Right March and Rally.
