Civil Rights Leaders Lament ‘Unfinished Business’ on MLK Holiday
By Hazel Trice Edney
Barbara Arnwine, president, Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law
Lorraine Miller, president, NAACP
U. S. Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio), chair, Congressional Black Caucus
Robert Trumka, president, AFL-CIO
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – As millions of people around the nation enjoyed the day off on Monday - many volunteering or commemorating the Martin Luther King birthday holiday with educational activities - civil rights leaders issued clarion calls that America faces “substantial unfinished business.”
“Without a doubt, there’s substantial unfinished business ahead of us as a nation, particularly on issues like voting rights and political empowerment, health inequities, employment, and asset-building,” said a statement from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “Regrettably, some 45 years since his assassination, there’s clear evidence that many of Dr. King’s goals have yet to be achieved.”
The Joint Center, a think tank for national Black politics and economics, recently issued a report declaring “there is strong statistical evidence that politics is re-segregating, with African Americans once again excluded from power and representation. Black voters and elected officials have less influence now than at any time since the Civil Rights era.”
The extent of the outcries from rights leaders seem to have reached epic proportions. Barbara Arnwine, president/CEO of The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, issued a two- page essay on Monday, the first of what she said would be a series of statements in response to the King Holiday this week. She pointed to the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s vision for a “Great Society” and among the greatest indicators of unfinished business.
“This vision of a ‘Great Society’ reflected Dr. King’s dream of economic prosperity, and established many programs that have significantly reduced poverty, including the Social Security Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the nation’s first food stamp program to combat hunger, notably African American poverty dropped from a height of 56 percent in the 1960s to approximately 31 percent today,” Arnwine pointed out. “However, 50 years later, these very programs that resulted in profound improvements in quality of life for the needy are being declared failures to be terminated, despite their gains. In President Johnson’s 1965 speech on passage of the Voting Rights Act, he made clear that ending poverty is part of the campaign for human rights…We have made great strides in reducing abject poverty, but too many families remain unable to make ends meet.”
Civil rights leaders, who specialize on various issues, point to vast inequalities indicating the need for multiple strategies.
“Sadly in 2014 the ugly specter of racial injustice still haunts every aspect of American society,” Arnwine continued. “Fifty years later, the inequality Johnson described has persisted in unemployment and increased through homelessness in communities of color, communities both urban and rural, and for too many children and seniors. We have dismantled formal school segregation, but continue to struggle with providing a quality education to all. Informal segregation in housing further impacts our ability to provide educational opportunities. There are no longer poll taxes or literacy tests, but in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder, jurisdictions have enacted new discriminatory barriers to voting. We must honor Dr. King’s vision of a society free of racial discrimination and poverty by examining how efforts to solve those problems must be improved.”
The strategies are as vast as the problems themselves.
“We'll march for it. We'll sing for it. We'll shout for it and stand for it, when it's easy and when it's hard, and the harder it is, the louder we'll sing, and the longer we'll stand!” proclaimed AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, speaking in San Antonio, Texas on Monday.
Reflecting on the words of the civil rights anthem, “We shall overcome someday,” Trumka thundered to the crowd, “The 99 percent need that new day now - the 10 million jobless workers. College graduates loaded with debt, and their parents, who want to retire but can’t. We need that day now - because too many people who work for a living are pursuing dreams that just keep getting farther away! And so we are here to celebrate the dream of Dr. King, on a day when the dreams of too many of us are slipping from our fingers!
Meanwhile, Congressional Black Caucus Chair Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio) released a statement in which she questioned how Dr. King would respond to the conditions of today.
“I believe Dr. King would applaud the progress we have made toward racial and social equity, but he would strongly caution us about the shrinking equality of opportunity currently plaguing our world,” Fudge said. “He would question our nation’s persistently high unemployment rate, particularly for African- Americans. He would ask why Congress couldn’t agree on extending unemployment insurance to the long-term unemployed - the people who need it the most. Dr. King would ask why millions of Americans continue to live in poverty and seek work while corporations post billions in record profits. He would call for individuals to be paid wages that would prevent them from falling below the poverty line.”
She concluded, “If he were alive today, Dr. King would certainly be proud of who we are, but he would also say that we must commit to move forward together as one nation, we must not rest on our progress, there is still much work to be done.”
Regardless of the strategies it will take to move forward, NAACP Interim President/CEO Lorraine C. Miller says it must include Americans from all niches of society – following King’s example - in order to make serious progress.
“Of the chance to serve, Dr. King once said: Everybody can be great...because anybody can serve,” Miller said. “You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love. And serve, he did. Dr. King was a leader in service to others, to the causes of civil and human rights, and to making the United States a great nation—for all.”