Alas, The Civil Rights Movement Succeeded…

There is an interesting article in today’s USA Today that notes (and, to a large extent, laments) the lack of strong, or at least unified, black leadership.

[Coretta Scott King’s] role as a moral and symbolic leader was unique, and black activists say it is unlikely that anyone will pick up the torch she carried for almost four decades after the 1968 assassination of her husband, civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

“She was singular in the role that she played, and she can’t be replaced,” says Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, one of the oldest and largest civil rights groups.

Today, Morial and others say, there is no compelling black leader with the national stature of Coretta Scott King or her late husband. Instead, African-Americans have attained leadership roles in many areas of society.

Rep. John Lewis, one of the black leaders quoted, agrees.

“We have more of a group leadership, not just two or three people, or the ‘Big Six’ like we did in the ‘60s,” he says, referring to leaders of the nation’s six major civil rights groups who planned the 1963 March on Washington. “We have … all these very successful entertainers and business people … that have emerged, so I don’t think we have a lack of leadership.”

As it happens I’m on the road (which explains why I’m seeing things more often in USA TODAY, free at most motels) and writing this from my old home town in south Alabama, where both John Lewis and I grew up (though, unfortunately, worlds apart at the time). In fact, I spoke with his sister yesterday on the square; a very nice lady, she works with an old friend of mine.

You would think the emergence of many black leaders in many fields would be regarded as an unalloyed success, but there is an almost wistful lament for the bad old days of strong, and unified, black leadership that permeates the article and occasionally breaks out into full view:

Ironically, the success of the movement that Martin Luther King led starting with the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955-56 defeated the forces that made that kind of leadership possible, says Manning Marable, professor of history and public affairs at Columbia University.

Ironically? Excuse me, but where’s the irony? Marable tries to explain, violating the sandblower rule (“When you’re in a hole, stop digging.”)

“Segregation was always a curse, but it was a perverse blessing in that black Ph.D.s and black street sweepers alike were forced to ride at the back of the bus,” Marable says. “That created a unity among African-Americans because we all knew and understood what we were fighting against. That unity no longer exists because we have now won nominal civil rights.”

Dang those “nominal civil rights”! Because of those darn things, barriers have been knocked down and black success has blossomed in many fields. As a result the black masses (that’s a term Marable would still be comfortable with) no longer understand what they should be fighting against. No doubt suffering from false consciousness, they don’t understand that individual rights and individual success are like leeches that suck the blood out of group solidarity.

Say What? (9)

  1. Stacy February 6, 2006 at 10:29 am | | Reply

    Comment test.

  2. Stacy February 6, 2006 at 10:48 am | | Reply

    Comment test.

  3. Anita February 7, 2006 at 2:40 pm | | Reply

    i’m listening to coretta’s funeral. the whole thing has turned into a hate america hate whitey demonstration. if i was bush i’d get up and leave, especially after the remark about WMDs. but he won’t. because he’s a white american and he’s been taught he’s guilty of all sins and he has to be a good sport when people insult him to his face. what i fear is the day when white people find out they are not the only sinners here. i always say black people are of two minds. with one mind we want racial harmony. with the other mind we want to get whitey, and not just because of whitey’s racism. because of our own.

  4. Cobra February 7, 2006 at 3:59 pm | | Reply

    Anita writes:

    >>>”i always say black people are of two minds. with one mind we want racial harmony. with the other mind we want to get whitey, and not just because of whitey’s racism.”

    How many “minds” do you believe white people are of?

    –Cobra

  5. anita February 8, 2006 at 11:29 am | | Reply

    no doubt whites are of many minds. but the official mind is non racist, which is why bush and all those other important white people came to the funeral. bush is a man that the majority of black people would describe as an evil war mongering racist, and he came to the funeral. what makes me sad is that we no longer even pretend that we’re about non racism. we’re against white racism. we regard al quada as freedom fighters that we have to support against the white man. we regard the US as the worse nation ever. at least this is the public rhetoric and this is how we talk. do we mean it. i hope not. this is not about objecting to this or that policy. this is about the mindset where you want your own nation to be damaged, the mindset where you come to the funeral of a civil rights figure and call the president who is sitting there a dumb racist. because either we are americans who love our country and wants rights in it. or we want it foreigners to destroy it, in which case forget about rights. and let’s not be misled by white liberals like jimmy carter. they are coming from an entirely different place.

  6. Cobra February 9, 2006 at 8:09 am | | Reply

    Anita writes:

    >>>”this is about the mindset where you want your own nation to be damaged, the mindset where you come to the funeral of a civil rights figure and call the president who is sitting there a dumb racist. because either we are americans who love our country and wants rights in it. or we want it foreigners to destroy it, in which case forget about rights. and ”

    So let me get this straight…you’re equating George W. Bush with America? George W. Bush is a MAN, not a king–an elected official, just like his father, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter. If you’ve fallen for the Fox News, Hate Radio hypnotism that if you’re against Bush’s policies, you’re “against America”, or even worse–if you’re against Bush policies you’re for the “enemy”, then I don’t know what to say to you. Not even all white REPUBLICANS agree with EVERYTHING this President has done.

    You are aware of this?

    –Cobra

  7. sharon February 9, 2006 at 4:47 pm | | Reply

    I think the fact that you call talk radio “Hate Radio” says it all.

  8. Cobra February 10, 2006 at 2:18 pm | | Reply

    Sharon writes:

    >>>”I think the fact that you call talk radio “Hate Radio” says it all.”

    Not really.

    THIS says it all

    John writes:

    >>>”No doubt suffering from false consciousness, they don’t understand that individual rights and individual success are like leeches that suck the blood out of group solidarity”

    I’m reminded of what Founding Father, and political cartoonist Benjamin Franklin famously said at the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

    “We can all hang together, or hang separately.”

    That being said, is it SO far afield for one to surmise, given the judicial record of Samuel Alito, that he doesn’t have the best interests of African Americans in mind when he makes his decisions? Is it so out of bounds for Civil Rights Leaders like Reverend Joseph Lowery to remind people at the funeral that Coretta Scott King was anti-war (not just Vietnam but Iraq as well), pro-social programs, and darn near against everything the current President(who couldn’t seem to find directions to one NAACP meeting) stands for?

    There are some out there who suggest that African Americans silently watch as all the gains in the Civil Rights Movement wash away as the waters of conservativism breech the levees of concern and compassion.

    Well, rest assured, I am NOT one of them.

    –Cobra

  9. John Rosenberg February 10, 2006 at 3:34 pm | | Reply

    actus:

    … is it SO far afield for one to surmise, given the judicial record of Samuel Alito, that he doesn’t have the best interests of African Americans in mind when he makes his decisions?

    Probably not, for some very good reasons.

    First, it is not a judge, or a Justice’s, role to base his decisions on what he believes are “the best interests of African Americans,” or any other group. His decisions should be based on the law (statutes, the Constitution, that sort of thing). In addition, insofar as “the best interests of African Americans” differ from the best interests of other groups, it is especially not the role of a judge, or a Justice, to put the interests of one group above those of another.

    There are some out there who suggest that … Americans silently watch as all the gains in the Civil Rights Movement wash away as the waters of [liberalism] breech the levees of [the principle of treating people without regard to their race or ethnicity].

    Well, rest assured, I am NOT one of them.

    Me either.

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