What should be a great moment in history has turned into a shameful one. On Aug. 28, 1963, hundreds of thousands of Black Americans and their allies streamed into Washington, D.C., demanding jobs and freedom, determined to force back the injustice of Jim Crow and the unfulfilled promises of the so-called American Dream.
Many people spoke that day. John Lewis represented the precocious and heroic young generation of student freedom fighters, while A. Phillip Randolph was a living bridge to a previous generation of strugglers. The gospel queen Mahalia Jackson gave voice to the spirit of the movement, and Martin Luther King emerged as the central leader of the Southern Freedom Movement while sharing his now famous dream.
On the 50th anniversary of this momentous day, the legacy has been sullied and trashed. The keynote speech will be given by a world-class war monger, one who has the audacity to speak in honor of Dr. King while preparing war in Syria. It will also feature presentations by a man who coldly threw poor people off welfare rolls, illegally bombed several countries, unrepentantedly killed 1 million Iraqis via sanctions and accelerated the incarceration of millions of Blacks. And if that is not enough, the stage will also be darkened by the shadow of the good friend of the murdering, torturing Shah of Iran, the man who fired his United Nations ambassador for attending a social function where a Palestinian envoy happened to be present.
Quite frankly, it would not be possible to assemble a program that is further from the spirit of the March on Washington. A. Phillip Randolph, the animating force behind the ’63 March, had spent years opposing imperialist war. In 1917, his magazine The Messenger was considered by the Justice Department to be the most “dangerous” of Negro publications, and Randolph defied opprobrium from all sides and instructed Black Americans to refuse to fight in World War I. During the Second World War, in defiance of the calls from every corner of “respectable” opinion, from a range of organizations Black and white, left and right, Randolph organized the March on Washington Movement. The MOWM risked disrupting the war effort to demand that segregation in war industries be ended.
Martin Luther King Jr., despite pleas from many advisors to the contrary, became one of the most trenchant critics of war and militarism in 20th century America. His observation that his own country was the worlds “greatest purveyor of violence” remains sadly true today. Dr. King listed militarism as one of the three evils along with poverty and racism that afflicted America.
Sadly that observation remains true today. In his “Beyond Vietnam” speech in 1967, Dr. King spoke of how he was moved to break the “betrayal” of his own silence. He spoke about how being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize had pushed him harder than ever to work towards the “brotherhood of man,” a calling beyond “national allegiances.” His work towards peace was not an anachronism, or a throw-away element of his legacy, but as his speeches show central to the fiber of his being and how he conceived his ministry.
We can interpret it no other way when we remember how he risked his entire public persona in coming out against the war in Vietnam. He stood for what was right because it was right, not because it was expedient or popular.
How far we are from these two legacies today. The 1963 March on Washington was an affront to the imperialist power structure. The Kennedy administration had hoped it could be derailed. When they could not, they made sure to station a Deputy Attorney General near the sound system to cut the audio at the first sign of speeches that sounded too radical. They mobilized tens of thousands of National Guard soldiers to “defend” the nation’s capital. The march was seen by the administration as a powder keg, a radical threat, something with the potential to shake this nation to its very core.
On Aug. 28, 2013, the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington is being used by the imperialist power structure to dress themselves up in the clothes of righteousness and moral courage, something that they know nothing about. Their own double-dealing, lying, killing, sanctioning and torturing is a disgusting black mark on history, one that they are trying desperately to cover up by appropriating the great legacy of those who marched in 1963.
President Barack Obama is not a continuation of King’s legacy, he is its negation. The president seeks at every turn to accommodate the rich and powerful, to conciliate the right-wing obstructionists, who answers the murder of Black youth with statements about the solidity of the nation’s legal system. He has waged war and killed children, conducted a massive spying campaign and ordered his minions to lie about it before congress. The list could go on for hundreds of words, because just like the presidents before him he has managed the imperialist system that needs King’s three evils to survive.
It is shameful that the memory of Martin Luther King should be given over to those who so clearly are out of accord with his legacy. It is a true affront to the dignity of the 1963 March on Washington and will enter into the annals of history as a dark day.
Honoring the legacy of that historic day is about more than giving a speech—it is about acting in accord with its spirit. We still need jobs and freedom. Militarism, racism and poverty are still with us. People like Randolph and King never let their bedrock principles give way to practicality. They were politically skilled without becoming supplicants to the corrupt elites who run the country.
The real heirs to the March on Washington won’t be the warmongers on stage, but the activists fighting against war, poverty and mass incarceration: The workers making poverty wages striking across the country, the people putting their bodies on the line against environmental exploitation—all those who dare to stand-up to power in the face of injustice. Let’s honor Dr. King by continuing that fight.
