Fifty years ago today, I took the train to Washington,
D.C., with my then-husband Richard to participate in the most
important protest of our era. We were not part of a group, though
we knew many groups that were involved. We went on our own, as
citizens, who wanted to add our voices to others to demand a
society free of the racial barriers that denied equal rights to
Americans whose skin color was not white. We knew Bayard Rustin,
one of the organizers of the event, very well. Bayard is not well
known today, his picture seldom appears in history textbooks, yet
he was the great thinker and organizer behind the March on
Washington. He was a close friend of both Martin Luther King, Jr.,
and A. Philip Randolph, the legendary black labor leader. Bayard
has been unjustly neglected in history books because he was gay; he
was also a pacifist. He happened to be brilliant and a great
political strategist. Bayard was a strong believer in coalition
politics. He knew that blacks on their own would be unable to bring
about change, but blacks in alliance with organized labor had the
power to organize great events and make politicians take notice.
When we got to the Washington Monument, we found ourselves in a sea
of people of all races and all colors and all ages. Despite
warnings about potential violence (intended to keep people away),
the huge crowds were cheerful, exhilarated, and peaceable. There
was the distinct feeling of joy in the air—the joy that is
associated with breaking free of stale laws, oppressive customs,
and dead ideology.
We were, on the Mall, in a new world: a world
where men and women of every background stood together, arm in arm,
to seek a newer world. Massed together, with the Washington
monument at one end of the Mall and the Lincoln Monument, at the
other, we sensed the possibility and reality of that newer world.
It was not a theory. For that brief few hours in time, the theory
was reality, and we knew that change was coming, that it was
inevitable. The only question was not whether it would happen, but
when.
Truth? Much has changed, but not enough. Barack Obama is
President, but poverty among people of color remains scandalously
high and racial segregation is no longer treated as outrageous.
When the U.S. Department of Justice warned Louisiana that its
voucher program conflicted with desegregation mandates, it was
almost surprising that someone remembered that desegregation is a
good idea.
The hottest “reform” idea of our time—charter
schools—has intensified segregation, and neither the U.S.
government nor the Wall Street donors seem to care. Indeed, the
promoters of charters and vouchers have the temerity to dub
themselves as leaders of “the civil rights issue of our time.”
As if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have supported a movement to
privatize public education! As if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
would have supported a movement that seeks to crush and ban
teachers’ unions! The so-called reformers forget that Dr. King was
closely allied with labor unions. They forget or maybe never knew
that when Dr. King was assassinated, he was in Memphis to help
underpaid sanitation workers (all of whom were black) organize into
a union to demand decent pay.
So, yes, let us remember the March on Washington. Let us not wait another fifty years to do so. Let us remember the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Let us remember that the promise of that day remains unfilled. And let us
rededicate ourselves to the dream of a day when all children have
equal opportunity to learn and their families have good jobs and
homes and healthcare, and the means to take care of their
children.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sadly, Barak Obama is the black president who is uniquely suited to the sort of sentimentality that’s neutered King’s speech. I can’t imagine how King could ever have supported such a moral coward as Obama.
Indeed, Obama’s function is not to fulfill King’s demands for a just society, but to emasculate King’s message by giving the illusion that we have achieved his “dream” while working to undo so much of the real work of the civil rights movement.
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So well stated, moosensquirrels. Thank you.
Barack Obama was selected to be the candidate for precisely that reason. How telling of our time that the first black president is a neo-liberal, completely aligned with corporate America.
Neo-Liberals speak out of one side of their mouth for the little guy, their nominal constituency, and the other side of their mouth for the plutocracy, their real constituency.
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How undo, oh maid from Maine?
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I teach United States 11th grade history in a school that serves English language learners. All of our students are recently arrived immigrants. Last spring we were discussing how MLK was in Memphis to support striking sanitation workers when he was assassinated in April of 1968. We then watched a video from Teaching Tolerance about Cesar Chavez and the Farm workers strikes begun in 1965 in Delano Ca. In that video there is a great clip of Bobby Kennedy chastising leaders of Delano for arresting workers for simply gathering – he tells them to read the Constitution. Kennedy goes on to win the CA primary in June of 1968 and gives that speech in an LA hotel just moments before he is killed in that clip we have all seen. In that short speech he mentions Chavez, who is not there although Delores Huerta, another leader of the movement, is by his side. He then leaves the stage and is killed. My students are shocked. They want to know if it is because he stood up for workers too. It would have been a fascinating question to try and answer. Students could have done research and presented their findings. But this was a Regents prep class and we had to move on to cover the 100+ other topics in US history that would be on the exam, which would determine whether or not they would earn a high school diploma.
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Sounds like a great class, sure wish I could have sat in on some sessions. Yes, King was in Memphis to support Black sandmen on strike, and word going around then was that if “sanitation workers are white, they are well-paid as in New York city; if they are black, they are low-paid as in Memphis.” Many of us also refused to eat grapes and lettuce for years to support Cesar Chavez and the UFW boycott. Thanks for reminding me of that time. I was also in DC on Aug. 28.
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Well, certainly John King, Meryl Tisch, David (“No context, please!”) Coleman, Bill Gates, Eli Broad, et. al. would be relieved that you didn’t get the opportunity to delve more deeply into those issues.
The conclusions your students might have reached would have frightened these poor oligarchs and their ventriloquist dummies to death.
Fortunately for their tender sensibilities, the Regents exams were there to keep things under control.
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Diane
Thank you for sharing that. What a powerful reflection – and if I may – most your readers were born after the ’60s. It’s not that “it’s the ’60s” – it’s that so many events of that decade from the excitement of space exploration to the tragedies (especially 1968) are the roots of our issues today. After 1954 and especially through the ’60s we saw the promise of public education – inclusion, innovation, democratic principles.
That scares many people, so recent decades include events, legislation, and even Supreme Court decisions to destroy that progress.
I watched the first march on the news; I was at the march Saturday. There is much work to be done. As most speakers noted, the 50th anniversary should not (only) be a commemoration, it is a second call to action.
Thank you for sharing – and your witness on history that we are living today.
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“We were on the Mall in a new world.”
That says it all and the “new world” feeling was still there at the 25th Anniversary March, where even the babies were peaceful and observant in that August heat.
The energy experienced is soulful and forceful.
Together we can access it as we push back against the state-by-state, strategic destruction of public schools and the dream of a “new world” for the communities they serve. It is scary now and it was scary then. But so what? The handwriting is on the wall and it says this is the moment we’ve been waiting for.
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Then there are the black “misleaders” who don the mantle of Dr. King in the service of the new segregationists:
Black Alliance for Educational Options – SourceWatch
The Black Alliance for Educational Options (BAEO) is an organization dedicated to the eradication of public schools. It received much of its funding from the Walton …
Beyond the Dream: the Black Alliance for Educational Options | Fox News Video
http://video.foxnews.com/v/2597584213001/beyond-the-dream-the-black-alliance-for-educational-options/
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We mustn’t forget to leave out Barry Obama and Cory Booker.
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quote: As if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have supported a movement to
privatize public education! As if Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
would have supported a movement that seeks to crush and ban
teachers’ unions! The so-called reformers forget that Dr. King was
closely allied with labor unions. They forget or maybe never knew
that when Dr. King was assassinated, he was in Memphis to help
underpaid sanitation workers (all of whom were black) organize into
a union to demand decent pay. /endquote
We always hear about the “I have a dream” speech, but rarely does one hear the speech Dr. King gave a year to the day before his assassination–the “Beyond Vietnam” speech where he advocated for the poor and spoke harshly against war.
Link to the speech here: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm
Also—something that is not acknowledged is that many in the African American community abandoned Dr. King when he started speaking out against war and poverty. He felt very alone in the time before his death.
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Much depends on how “desegregation” is defined. Desegregation has been achieved if one uses the definition that Congress included in the civil rights act of 1964 — “‘Desegregation’ means the assignment of students to public schools…without regard to their race…but ‘desegregation’ shall not mean the assignment of students to public schools in order to overcome racial imbalance.” “Desegregation” has not been achieved if it is understood to mean the assignment of students by race to achieve a “better” racial balance. By 1964, there was a consensus in support of the first definition. There has never been widespread support for the second.
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I have been watching the Today Show this morning with their “I have a dream….” participants. I think it was a good idea, and I am hearing many good statements of what people want. However, I don’t hear a very good definition of education. People are saying they want a good education for all. Most are not saying they want an equal education for all, one where all children receive what they need such as special education evaluation, one test a year to evaluate their learning, recess, field trips, opportunities that higher income children have. I believe that Dr. King would want this kind of equality in our schools. He would not want privatization. Thank you, Dr. Ravitch, for your insight into a great speech and a great man.
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I think it is odd to conflate defacto segregation with the old fashioned dejure. I lived in the South for a few years and knew people who went to real legally segregated schools in Mississippi. Unfortunately social trends of the last few generations mean the better off don’t live near the poor. We need to find a way to education people where we find them not bemoan the fact that rich people aren’t in schools. The idea seems to be that we cannot educate poor people without sprinkling in some rich people. That sounds foolish.
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Well, Jerry McKenna, we can’t educate the poor, if corporate America closes their local public schools (see Rahm Emmanuel. The neo-liberal goal is to provide enough education for children to become subservient workers in the Walmart, Target, Macy’s, Apple, Facebook corporate world of America today. Look at the participants in the ALEC pac initiative to destroy social security and you will see who is behind the destruction of public education.
It serves corporate America’s purpose to banish and block the fostering of creativity, critical thinking skills, teacher, administrative, educator and cognitive scientist autonomy, and local parental control.
It’s all about money: getting taxpayer funds into the pockets of the 1%.
The five Walton family members own collectively the combined wealth of 140 million Americans. I cannot imagine why they still need more money.
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“It serves corporate America’s purpose to banish and block the fostering of creativity, critical thinking skills, teacher, administrative, educator and cognitive scientist autonomy, and local parental control.”
One good rant deserves another. Thus:
I have to say, and I’ve said it before, I think that diatribes like the one above are utterly, utterly alienating to people who care about schools and are concerned about their future and their children’s future, but who see themselves as independent-minded and guided by “common sense” rather than ideology. Reasonable minds can disagree about whether such people really are “independent” or whether anyone can really separate themselves from Ideology. But these people exist. And when these people hear a rant about how corporate America is hell-bent on eradicating public education *for the specific purpose* of “banish[ing] and block[ing] the fostering of creativity, critical thinking skills, teacher, administrative, educator and cognitive scientist autonomy, and local parental control,” what they conclude is that the speaker is paranoid, irrational, “extremist,” or has an ax to grind. This kind of rant goes in the cabinet with rants by the 9/11 truthers, the birthers, and the abolish-the-Fed crowd.
I would urge people to take that into consideration, even if only as a strategic factor.
Separately, apart from its potential negative effect on the listener, the idea that the Brothers Koch and the Walton Five think public schools foster creativity, critical thinking skills, and “local parental control” runs counter to everything we know about them. If you’ve never had the pleasure of meeting a true Master of the Universe (whether Koch, Walton, or one of the tech or hedge fund variety), here’s what you should know.
First, the Kochs and Waltons aren’t comic book villains. So unlike Lex Luthor, they tend not to hatch elaborate schemes with the goal of making a great real estate trade, or for a vague purpose like world domination or destroying something they hate.
Second, the Kochs and Waltons don’t believe public schools foster creativity or critical thinking skills. They truly believe that public schools are awful and generally do a terrible job educating people. That’s why they don’t send their kids to the local public school (I assume they don’t — correct me if I’m wrong).
Third, the Kochs and Waltons don’t live in fear of educated citizens. They don’t fear free-thinking individuals, they fear powerful institutions that don’t share their interests, such as labor unions, strong federal and state regulatory agencies, and left-leaning courts. The Kochs don’t want Koch Industries to be staffed from a huge pool of people with GEDs from virtual charter schools. Koch needs engineers, chemists, accountants, construction managers for huge, complex industrial projects, an army of in-house and outside counsel, and lobbyists. Wal-Mart needs a lot of low-skill workers, but the Waltons are not in any fear that there’ll be a shortage of low-skill workers. Nor do they think there will ever be a shortage of potential employees willing to work part-time for $9 an hour — assuming the labor unions are kept out of Wal-Mart.
Fourth, the Kochs and Waltons are not insecure about their worldview. They don’t just think they’re right. They know they’re right. They *know* public education is largely terrible. They *know* that environmental and labor market regulation is bad. They *know* that unions and government spending are ruining this country. They’re cynical in the way that all people with extraordinary power are cynical — they know how the sausage is made, because they make the sausage. But they truly believe — they *know* — that their ideas are better than your ideas. The answer to “Better for whom?” is “Better for everyone,” because they don’t see any real distinction between Koch Industries or Wal-Mart and the rest of what matters in the world. What’s good for Koch and Wal-Mart is good for America and good for the world. Yes, there are winners and losers in capitalism. But the Kochs and the Wal-Marts don’t devote nearly as much thought to the “losers” as some people seem to believe. When they think about the losers, this is what they think: “Screw ’em.”
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“First, the Kochs and Waltons aren’t comic book villains. So unlike Lex Luthor, they tend not to hatch elaborate schemes…”
I agree that you don’t need to take an ideological position to oppose what’s being called “education reform,” but I think part of your argument misses the mark. Bill Gates, Eli Broad, the Waltons (and I’m guessing the Kochs) have made it clear that they want to reduce the cost of education, which is funded primarily by state and local taxes. The bulk of these revenues goes to schools, and the bulk of that is spent on teacher pay.
So Gates “discovers” that manageable class size, experience, and advanced degrees don’t matter, so why pay for them? (Most teachers realize that unless you’re a freak of nature, it takes at least ten years to get really good at the job, and that if it’s a good program, a master’s degree will help you in the classroom.) Broad understands that the fewer the schools, the lower the overhead, the less tax money needed to support them, so he has his subordinates design plans to close them. The Waltons know that the secret of their retailing empire isn’t just bulk purchasing, endless expansion, and inventory control, it’s squeezing every single counter-party as much as is humanly possible–and that includes employees, suppliers, and public officials. This allows them to entice consumers with their low-priced goods. They have a two-fold reason for attacking teacher unions and unions in general: 1) a non-unionized public work force will have less bargaining power and is forced to settle for lower wages and poorer working conditions (meaning property taxes , and 2) they fear that their own employees will try to form a union, which would threaten their business plan.
To say that there are no elaborate schemes at work here is a little hard take. The billionaires’ willingness to funnel huge sums into “reforms” that stand to reduce their tax liability and open up new opportunities for profit isn’t a coincidence. In fact, they’re using tax-free money to do this, so it’s costing them less than it appears. And of course the tax breaks they receive for their “venture philanthropy” mean that somebody else has to make up the resulting deficit. They’re involved in a racket masquerading as an effort to help children. From my point of view, they’re acting to the detriment of children. But I agree with you that, as Robert McKee says, the villain in the story never thinks he is doing anything wrong. He is acting according to his own nature and his own value system.
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Randal — glad to hear we agree on some things. To clarify, I wasn’t saying that the Kochs or the Waltons don’t pursue “elaborate schemes.” Their businesses are elaborate and are run systematically and with purpose, and they manage their lobbying and foundation work the same way. What I was saying is that they don’t come up with their schemes “with the goal of making a great real estate trade, or for a vague purpose like world domination or destroying something they hate.” Because they’re not comic book villains. (“And I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for these meddling kids!”)
I agree, there’s obviously a huge focus on cost reduction. I don’t think that’s something that Koch et al approach with the specific idea of self-enrichment (and I’m not saying you think that, either). I think that’s an expression of their commitment to a larger, righteous war against government, inefficiency, and taxation.
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FLERP,
If you look at where the Waltons put their foundation money and their political contributions, it all adds up to one word: Privatization. Oh, and a couple more: No unions. It worked for them.
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FLERP, I believe the pro-privatization and anti-union efforts are intended not just to reduce costs for these businesses but explicitly to lower property taxes. Broad’s companies hold land for development, which is taxed annually. Walmart holds huge amounts of real estate nationwide. To the extent that curbing the cost of public education reduces tax liability, the “cost savings” goes directly to the bottom line of the wealthy interests. A portion of that enrichment, if you will, then goes toward further lobbying and influence-buying. They’re having their cake and eating it, too in at least one additional way: the privately run charters they’re using as flagships of “reform” are being funded by public money. The effect is to squeeze the schools that remain public and make them look even worse by comparison (at least in the eyes of most of the media), which helps keep the “reform” snowball rolling down hill. So the private influence they’re buying is extracted both directly and indirectly from the public. As my grandpa used to say, it’s enough to make your head swim.
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In other words, what Gates, Broad, The Walton’s and Koch’s “know” happens to be perfectly congruent with their economic and political interests.
In practice, given their near-infinite resources, how exactly does that make them differ from Lex Luther?
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“I think it is odd to conflate defacto segregation with the old fashioned dejure.”
I tend to think of it as a figure of speech. As in, when someone says or implies that there’s no difference between de facto and de jure segregation, we understand that they don’t actually mean what they said. Rather, they’re just blowing off steam, or they’re using hyperbole for rhetorical effect. They can’t actually mean it. That’s how I interpret it, at least.
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I just heard Obama’s speech on NPR as I did the school pickup duty. Here is what he said about education toward the end:
“With that courage, we can stand together for the right of every child, from the corners of Anacostia to the hills of Appalachia, to get an education that stirs the mind and captures the spirit and prepares them for the world that awaits them. (Applause.)”
Well isn’t that nice? Too bad his policies and Dept of Education don’t do any of that. Not by a long shot. Instead they are dumbing down our schools, over-testing our kids, misusing the results of those tests to demoralize and deprofessionalize our teaching corps, all in service of the richy riches scheming and profiting from the privatizing of our national tradition of effective public schools.
Nice rhetoric Mr President– now make the reality on the ground and in the classroom match it . . . that’s my dream.
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Bertis Downs
Yes, you spelled it out, American reality 2013 right there staring us in the face.
As I said in my previous post, Obama is a neo-liberal.
Neo-Liberals speak out of one side of their mouth for the little guy, their nominal constituency, and the other side of their mouth for the plutocracy, their real constituency.
Catch him in his lies, over and over. How shameful when you think back to Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream.
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Obama’s presence at this event, and in particular his compulsive need to lecture and scold Black America for its moral failings – funny how he can never seem to do the same for his “savvy businessmen” pals – was a desecration.
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What a wonderful tribute. An antidote to the blasphemous co-opting of civil rights rhetoric by so-called reformers who think nothing of re-segregating our schools, narrowing curriculum for the have-nots and pillaging resources from neighborhood schools.
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Gates, Buffet, Broad, Walton et al planned this long ago as they have long term thinking and know that money can corrupt almost anyone which is why CORE-CA separated from CORE long ago. Just go check the funders of your favorite institution and then compare it with the old ALEC list and then tell me what you see. They cannot influence us with money as we will not take it. This is a world wide strategy to create a world of the elite and indentured servants to service them with the elite controlling the power for a Darth Vader like world. We are at the point in history when we will make the decision as to what we will become. No matter what it will be technologically advanced. Now will we end up as the Darth Vader World, evil, or the Star Trek world, benevalent. I prefer the latter and that is the mission and outcome we must achieve against the Darth Vader’s out there.
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The Star Trek world was explored by the US Enterprise. Are you really saying you favor U.S. enterprise?
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Thank you Diane….
Your words are strong but sobering.
I’m overwhelmed with with sadness as I think of the hard work yet to be done to bring civil liberties to all in this country. I am overwhelmed with sadness when my great grand daughter came home from kindgergarten saying that she is not supposed to talk during recess and that the children did not get recess yesterday because children were talking and acting silly. There are no blocks or play equipment in the room. Just tables where children can put their head down on when they are not quiet enough. The children in this school are mostly African American, Hispanic, Vietnamese and Philipino. At the same time your words and hearing the words of the civil rights leaders in 1963 and today give me courage again to continue to want public schools for everyone where children can learn and sing and talk and be silly in kindergarten.
Yetta M. Goodman, University of Arizona, College of Education
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Would it matter to you whether the school was a charter or a government run school, as long as it was a “good” school?
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“Government schools” is a typical Tea Party/ Repug way of trying to undermine what are, or used to be, public, community-based schools.
Your using that false,stale term is akin to your fellows trying to eliminate the estate tax by calling it the Death Tax, thus forever institutionalizing the increased wealth polarization in this country.
They’re both false terms, and are vehicles for venal purposes.
What’s the matter, Harlan? Don’t you think everyone should show a little gumption and drive, even the children of the mega-rich?
Isn’t that what the Magic of the Marketplace is supposed to encourage?
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Diane, thanks for this inspiring post. The historical perspective on what’s going on today is refreshing. It’s a sad commentary, though.
I hope plans are in the works for another SOS rally in Washington, DC. I wonder if the summer of 2014 would be too early. Maybe every three or four years would be a good interval. I’m putting it into my travel budget just in case.
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I’d like to honor the 50 year anniversary of the March on Washington and bemoan the reversal of many of our civil rights issues. May we recover our zeal for helping the unfortunate and hope the elites of this country stop being so greedy and selfish.May cooler heads prevail over engagement in another foreign war, a war the American people clearly do not want.
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Wow, Diane. Absolutely wonderful. You continue to be a blessing to us all. Thank you.
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So . . . are we saying that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was really a closet socialist, down deep in his heart, and that what he really wanted was not just de jure civil rights, freedom to aspire, but actually wanted much more, like compensation for those generations of black slavery, social justice, economic equality, produced by governmental fiat, the way so many here do? What was his essential message? Economic equality for all or no legal discrimination against blacks? Did he see civil rights as “freedom from” artificial constraints or did he see civil rights as “entitlement to” a higher percentage of the wealth created by other people?
My belief is he believed the former certainly, and may have believed the latter. My belief is that he led a fight against discrimination but possibly would not have condoned the kind of theft that those who wave the civil rights banner these days are claiming for him. It is the paradox of the progressive left, so communitarian in outlook, that it is always accompanied by drives for legalized (in taxes) appropriation of other people’s work (i.e. stored work=money). Those who are most anti-slavery are simultaneously all about enslaving others, about making them work and then taking half their output. That is involuntary servitude, slavery.
So we get this gruesome anomaly of those preaching the most about freedom are in fact actually pushing for slavery. It reminds me of the Democrats of the pre-Civil War south, who fought a war to preserve states rights, but were in reality fighting only for freedom for whites, not for all men. And of the Democrats of the post civil war era, who imposed Jim Crow law all over the south, and controlled enough votes in Congress to keep Emancipation from truly happening, until Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. created a way to combat unjust law—by peaceful civil disobedience. He truly had a just cause and a just method.
What an irony then that his name is now claimed by those who would reenslave, not just people of color, but all Americans, and do so in the name of civil rights, when what they REALLY mean, is to take away the freedom to succeed under the banner of “equal income for all.” In its American form, what is really sought by progressivism is dictatorship of the working and serf proletariat, with themselves as the dictators in the name of the proletariat. And what a sorry, shabby affair it has become.
Freedom and equality are incompatible. You can have freedom, but you will never achieve equality. Which do you choose?
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I’d choose “some freedom” and “some equality,” for lack of a better idea.
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This is one of your best posts. What wonderful foresight and courage that you and Richard went to DC to be part of the March. And thanks for reminding us of a little of the history behind the event.
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As a resident of Bayard Rustin’s home town, West Chester PA, which has been celebrating him for years, including the100th anniversary of his birth on 3/17/12, I (and I’m sure many others) would be very interested to hear more of how you knew Rustin. Any knowledge about him is part of the great and unfinished record of the civil rights struggle in this country, in which education as you say remains central. His inspiration is needed now as much as ever.
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