This year the theme is Black Resistance. "African Americans have resisted historic and ongoing oppression, in all forms, especially the racial terrorism of lynching, racial pogroms, and police killings since our arrival upon these shores."
Ten thousand Americans turn 60 every day, and on average we’ll live another 23 years. We’ll vote in huge numbers, as we always do. One possibility is that we’ll help turn back the clock a little, toward the world we actually built in our youth.
Despite important strides that the United States has made toward racial equality in the 60 years since the March on Washington, we have yet to address the persistent poverty and unemployment that turned Martin Luther King’s dream “into a nightmare.”
As the economy opened up to women a half century ago, one in three working women was an office employee. As the clerical workforce grew by leaps and bounds, so did a sense of injustice among the women, leading to the founding of the 9 to 5 Movement.
Resolving the conflict between being visionary and being pragmatic is critical for those who want to transform society. Can we be both visionary and strategic?
Lynd explored the biggest little secret, one people everywhere should heed: We who do the work can build a better world, and we can best do it without the parasitic Super Rich who contribute nothing and weigh us down like a monstrous ball and chain.
In the 1960s, Southern organizations tried sending African Americans to Northern states in a “cheap” PR stunt designed to embarrass and expose Northern liberals. It didn’t work.
A just-unsealed file shows that the FBI extensively tracked Aretha Franklin’s civil rights activism, particularly her friendships with Martin Luther King, Jr., and Angela Davis.
Dubbed “the Negro Eugene Debs,” Frank Crosswaith was one of the great socialists of the early to mid-20th century. And his message was unwavering: only a vigorous labor movement and democratic socialist policies can deliver a better life for black workers.
The March on Washington was 59 years ago today. It’s popularly remembered as a moderate demonstration where MLK “had a dream” — but in fact, it was the decades-long culmination of a mass, working-class movement against racial and economic injustice.
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