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Public Employee Press
February is Black History Month
Lessons of the civil rights movement for
todays labor movement
By ALDON MORRIS and DAN CLAWSON
American workers nationwide, including members of DC 37, arent paid
what they deserve. They face rules, working conditions, and supervisors
they shouldnt have to put up with. What can be done to change that
and win better conditions?
Black History Month is a good time for todays workers to learn valuable
lessons from the civil rights movement. Whatever problems New York City
workers face today, 50 years ago things were much worse for Black people
in the South.
Whites dominated politics, the courts, and the media. Southern Blacks
could not vote. Schools, bathrooms, waiting areas, and water fountains
were segregated, and that segregation humiliated Blacks and sent the message
they were inferior. Most Blacks were unwilling to fight the system openly,
and many accepted the label of inferior. But 10 years later
legal segregation was gone forever, people thought Black is beautiful,
and Congress had passed laws guaranteeing Black rights.
What are some of the lessons we can learn from the civil rights movement?
1. Disruption creates power: Why do people put up with oppression?
Because they lack power, or think they lack power. The civil rights movement
succeeded because it showed that it had the power to disrupt things-as-usual.
This mass movement created such huge crises that it forced the oppressors
to give in. Disruption meant that Black leaders could demand change rather
than plead and beg for it. Without such disruption the Jim Crow social
system could not have been overthrown.
2. Dont get lost in bureaucracy: When Rosa Parks was arrested
and the Montgomery bus boycott got started, the protest should
have been organized through the NAACP, which was the leading civil rights
organization. But the NAACP said it would take weeks for them to officially
endorse the protest. So people created a new organization, the Montgomery
Improvement Association, under the leadership of the Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr.
3. Events create media coverage: The Rev. King was an incredibly
powerful and charismatic speaker, but his charisma wasnt the only
factor that focused media attention on the civil rights movement. It was
the ability of the movement to organize bold confrontations between Black
people and the segregationists that attracted media attention.
People putting their bodies on the line triggered struggles between democracy
and oppression, exposed the racism and brutality of the white power structure
and let the movement occupy the moral high ground. The media had no choice
but to cover these profound struggles. Real human drama cannot be ignored,
and leaders and grassroots activists willing to confront oppressors cause
extraordinary human drama.
4. Actions change culture: Before the civil rights movement began,
Southern whites claimed that both Blacks and whites liked segregation,
and many Negroes had been taught to be ashamed of Black culture.
Indeed, Blacks and whites were ignorant about Africa and about Black history.
The civil rights movement changed that. By the late 1960s, Blacks came
to think that Black is beautiful and adopted hairstyles and
clothing to reflect that. People strengthened connections to Africa and
began to seriously study Black history, rediscovering a long list of Black
accomplishments.
Its important to realize that Black culture changed because there
was a strong movement. Interest in Black history developed because Black
people were making history. Whites suddenly discovered that segregation
was unjust because a strong Black movement forced them to confront reality.
5. Expect failures: We remember the successes, but the civil rights
movement had plenty of setbacks. Indeed, setbacks were important learning
experiences and helped prepare the way for future successes. Yet at the
time, pessimists claimed that such difficulties proved that success was
impossible.
6. Victory takes huge sacrifices: The civil rights movement won
major victories because at key times people always stepped up, volunteering
to run risks and make huge sacrifices. By putting themselves in the front
line, movement leaders led by example. In some struggles nearly the entire
local Black population supported the movement. They proved that ordinary
people can accomplish extraordinary victories when they are organized
and determined.
Conclusion for today: Workers today can learn valuable lessons
from the civil rights movement. But reading and study arent enough.
A fundamental question faces workers today: Do they have the courage to
get up off their knees and confront powerful employers and corporations?
To succeed, mass movements require people willing to go to jail, be beaten,
and even lose their lives in a noble and just struggle designed to win
their rights and restore their dignity. Although we do not know whether
todays workers possess such courage, we do know that Jim Crow was
overthrown because southern Blacks did.
Aldon Morris is Professor of Sociology at Northwestern
University and author of The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement.
Dan Clawson is Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts
Amherst and author of The Next Upsurge: Labor and the New Social
Movements. A longer version of this article can be read in the December
2005 issue of WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society.
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