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Another Sweltering Summer of Legitimate Discontent

In this disheartening summer that has seen the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965—because, the chief justice tells us, its protections are no longer needed—amid vigorous rollbacks of voting rights and access in states with Republican-controlled legislatures; and that has seen a shockingly unjust verdict in the Trayvon Martin case, the moderate-to-liberal American majority that believes in “liberty and social justice for all” sorely needs uplifting, inspiring. These dispiriting events, along with the 50th anniversary in June of the assassination of Medgar Evers, call to mind King’s reference to “this sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent.”

So it is no wonder that many of us look with a kind of hungry, yearning nostalgia to the idealism and promise signified by the great 1963 March on Washington that took place 50 years ago today. That march, with its hundreds of thousands of peaceful marchers of all colors—the largest demonstration Washington had ever seen—would have been an historic event anyway, but it was lifted to majestic heights that will be looked to for decades, centuries to come by the exalting oratory of Martin Luther King Jr., in a speech whose original script did not include the words “I Have a Dream.”

Why We Still Need the March on Washington

The general American public—those who are not right-wing reactionaries putting party before nation and ideology above party—has elected an African American president by strong majorities in two straight elections. We can all take pride in this fact. In five of the last six presidential elections (counting 2000) the popular vote has gone to the Democratic candidate. And yet it seems that the election of our first president of color has also pushed a certain kind of button, activating some rather scary retro-reactionary machinery that would drag the nation backward, ever backward into a darker and less civil and humane society. Since late 2008—when, you might recall, the entire economy was in free fall—the forces of extreme, radically conservative reaction (with help from one very influential cable news network) have shifted into overdrive to resist and revoke rights and protections hard-won by minorities over the past decades—indeed, they seem to be trying to roll back the entire twentieth century.

Although this chief executive has endeavored to be a president of all Americans, of whatever complexion or political orientation, and though he has tried time and again to accommodate the opposition’s concerns, the Grand Old Party’s “massive resistance” to even the simplest and most routine bills and nominations, and even to legislation originally proposed by Republicans, has strangled and poisoned the body politic to the point of paralysis. Every initiative proposed by this president and his party is stonewalled, achieved only through protracted struggle and deal-making, and then, even after passage, is vilified daily, as though expanding access to health care or investing in the repair of roads and bridges is a betrayal of the public trust.

Energetically and as secretively as possible, a well-organized and richly funded minority is busy revoking or strangling minorities’ and women’s rights while the rest of the population—those paying attention, anyway—watches in horror and disgust. Some protest, while most of the public is simply trying to survive or hold on to the job (if any), or is so exhausted or beaten down by hard luck and grim times that they can’t stand up to fight.

But times have been hard before, and these storms, too, the republic shall survive, if enough of us work together. And for an example of how we can work together for a better society and economy, and get results, we look to the words and actions of those who brought us the 1963 March on Washington.

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Tomorrow we’ll look at some of the similarities between 1963 and 2013, and at the socialist and labor union origins of the great March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom of August 28, 1963.