Now, I just want to give heads up to all those who urgently need to make a claim of being supportive of the “Civil Rights Movement”, the “historical” one, you know, the one way back in US history, the 1950s and 60s-for sure not todays. I want to remind you to dust-off MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, get ready with your favorite quotes, a nice photo and don’t forget a good colorful African art border to look authentic. Make sure to add few Civil Rights era leaders and why not drop some favorite Black singers and tunes to the posts while you are getting ready.
Important note: Don’t confuse it with Black History Month that’s February and you do need a different act to claim support and get your racist uncle on the move as well.
I am giving everyone notice, because, you know, many things will get in the way with all the New Year parties and resolutions that MLK’s holiday will just jump into your schedule, while you are not prepared to play the “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” card, which I totally forgot to mention that most universities and corporations have ditched it altogether. Also, make sure to tag your Black friends, which I am sure you remember only on MLK’s day, and remind them that your mother, grandmother, father, grandfather, and all your White family marched for civil rights but did not hire or invite anyone from the Civil Rights Movement into their Thanksgiving gatherings, even the last one. Say, we did it together, even if the truth is different-no one will notice since Hoover’s COINTELPRO surveillance files were destroyed or gone missing.
I know for a fact that the majority of Whites did not join the Civil Rights Movement, and if they did, it was mostly opposing civil rights and labeling MLK and other activists as communist agitators intent on undermining Western Civilization. No worries, we are back to the pre-Civil Rights Movement Days and reverse discrimination is in the air.
For sure then, the sympathies were for the police and all those opposing integration at the steps and gates of schools and restaurants. I know that many will make a quick transition to say integration did not work and point to the poor conditions in inner cities, failing schools, the high level of poverty, crime, single-mother households, and drugs, to name a few of the normal go-to blame Blacks and minority distractions. However, the person speaking will rarely make any connection to White flight to the suburbs, “reform” of the social welfare system (Democrats and Republicans), cutting taxes for the rich, expansion of the prison industrial complex, and pushing drugs into the inner cities to fund the war in Latin America and Afghanistan. I know these are very “complicated” issues, and blaming Blacks and minorities is much easier and makes you sound “ethical” and “moral” because you express concern for what’s happening in their communities, which you rarely visit or pay attention to.
I am not going to deny that some Whites did participate and joined the Civil Rights Movement then and now, but it was a minority of Whites while the majority opposed and continue to oppose any changes in the country. The victories in the 1960s were achieved despite White majority’s opposition to the Civil Rights Movement and terrorizing those active in it. The fact remains that White Southern Democrats switched to the Republican Party after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and continue to resist change to this day.
Indeed, since the 1964 election, no Democratic president has won a majority of White votes nationwide. The shifts that occurred after the 1964 passage of the Civil Rights Act have continued to shape the US political landscape to this day.
Everyone loves to claim the Civil Rights Movement, MLK’s March on Washington, and more so among Whites, who often support the historical idea of civil rights but not its actual manifestation. Today, some even have the audacity to urge Blacks and minorities to be like MLK and not to protest in the streets, while all along forgetting that the Civil Rights Movement did take to the streets among its tactics.
I am sure that Whites (liberal and conservative) in America love MLK’s day because they can put on the Civil Rights cloak in January and claim to have won “the country and movement” back in the 1960s. Many will have a field day of all types of preaching to Blacks and minorities on how much they know about the " I Have a Dream “ speech, MLK, and why we have made monumental progress in this country, and not like others around the world. Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream” speech is the one and only speech that everyone is permitted to cite, quote, sing, and play on the screen during Martin Luther King’s holiday. Everyone gets to claim knowing MLK and how he managed to overcome his “resentment and anger” against White America and offer a non-violent, “color blind” and non-racist future horizons.
All those dusting off the speech are ready to make the jump and claim that we have achieved MLK’s aspirations while admitting some issues need work. In most cases, the dusting off does not include any other speech or context of MLK’s work. All insist on engaging MLK of 1963, but never the one from 1966 or 1967. No one will read or offer to dust off the Three Evils of Society, Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence speeches, or try to replicate his efforts against poverty.
I have a dream makes it possible to bypass the present and constantly claim arrival without being on the proverbial civil rights bus.
The 1960s civil rights pacts were an attempt to reorient society away from structural racism and toward inclusivity through a gradual, legally protected process. Access to education, employment opportunities, and economic upward mobility were key tools in this gradual process. However, just as the engines of change began to take shape across America and toward inclusivity, so did reactionary, racist, and xenophobic pockets of White resentment commence in earnest to organize for a counter strategy. I have a dream speech is used by reactionary forces to claim progress has been made because overt Jim Crow laws were undone, while structural racism remains intact.
Indeed, challenges to the gains made by the civil rights movement were immediate and took many shapes, including the assassination of MLK himself and targeting other Black leaders in the process. On the legal front, a host of lawsuits challenging affirmative action and policies intended to promote diversity were pursued almost immediately, as early as 1969, in the NYC teachers’ union and in other states as well. Furthermore, in the South, the political shift toward the right began to take shape and centered on opposition to the mandated civil rights regulations and the Voting Rights Act, intended to bring an actual end to almost a century of segregation.
Consequently, the reactionary right in the South and other parts of the country is able to construct a narrative of victimhood centered on the “liberals” who caused “us” to lose “our country” and the civil rights legislation that weakened White America’s hold on power. “Make America Strong Again” or “Make America Great Again” is a theme that gets stitched back to the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, then emerges into the center of power in 2016 and 2024, as a means to reassert the “traditional” order of things in America, which includes Blacks and minorities knowing their place in society.
Dusting off MLK’s speech will not include any examination of the reactionary politics or the rollback of most of the Civil Rights gains from the 1960s, including the open season on immigrants and undoing the legal protections. History and remembrance on MLK’s day becomes an erasure act, the 1960s used as a dagger to bludgeon the present structural racism, war on the poor, and a wholesale abandonment of Blacks and minorities in the country. Don’t look to university, corporate, media, and religious leadership for a critique; they'll all have staff on hand to dust off the “I have a Dream” speech while partnering and celebrating those who are undoing MLK’s legacy in front of our eyes.
