I attended a symposium November 5, 2006 at the JFK Library in Boston, focused on the Civil Rights Movement in Boston from 1960 to 1968. Good event. Well organized, bringing together many of the key participants of that era with an audience filled not only with thirty, forty, fifty, and of course sixty-somethings, but also a lot of teens and those in their twenties. However, it ended on what was for me a strange note. The last three persons who asked questions of the last panel each raised essentially the same question--What meaning should we draw from that era for today's struggle in Boston and the nation? What was strange was that none of the panelists responded to the questions.

I could imagine a lot of reasons why the panelists did not want to venture into that area at the end of a symposium on the sixties. However, since I think its an important question that does not get enough discussion, I thought it appropriate to share my thoughts with the BlackCommentator audience with the hope of stimulating a dialogue. My perspective is that the purpose of life on this planet for each of us is to advance our human consciousness of the imperative need for us to develop right relations not only with each other but also with the environment. Therefore, the civil rights movement of the fifties and sixties was a critical step forward in that evolutionary process.

One hundred years after the end of the civil war, the passage in Congress of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act affirmed the commitment of the country to eradicate the virulent cancer within the American body politic--the apartheid treatment of Blacks in the South as well as other discriminations making a mockery of American democratic ideals. The civil rights movement also stimulated other groups to stand up and assert their grievances--women, students, other racial and ethnic groups, workers, etc. However, while the struggle to make that civil rights affirmation of the sixties real continues into this century, in 1967 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, seeing the limitations of the civil rights gains, framed the foundation for the struggle for human rights.

On April 4th, 1967 Dr. King, much to the consternation of many supporters, stepped out of the box of being a world renounced leader in the struggle for civil rights for Blacks in this country and took his place as a leader for human rights throughout the world with his denunciation of the Vietnam War and American support for it. While his decision to speak out must be viewed as an issue of personal conscience, it also should be viewed, I believe, as a recognition that civil rights for Blacks would be continually undercut if the leaders of the country, government and business were allowed to trample the human rights of people not only in this country, but around the world.

Being a man of action, Dr. King could not rest on his laurels as a champion of civil rights and as a courageous voice on the Vietnam issue. Consequently, shortly after his historic speech, he began to work with the leadership of SCLC on developing the first major battle in the struggle for human rights, the Poor People's Campaign.  A key indicator that this campaign was to focus on human rights for all was the fact that his call was to all people of this nation who recognized that governmental policies were perverting the body politic. His enunciation of the three evils--militarism, materialism (and its twin brother economic exploitation), and racism spoke to the needs not only of Blacks but also of all who were being deprived of the opportunity to participate in the American dream. It is also important to note that even the tactics of the movement changed with the call being not just for a one day demonstration but for a siege "until the promissory note is paid".

Given the fact that Dr. King's call was pointing an arrow at the heart of the American system of oppression, it is understandable that forces within the government and without conspired to end his life. However, with the eradication of his courageous energy as well as intellectual and spiritual brilliance, we no longer had a leader able to frame the human rights issues and inspire the people of America to challenge the empire. So for the last forty years, we have wandered in the desert of neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism without a shining star to guide the way. Meanwhile the civil rights movement has created opportunities for some Blacks but not equal opportunities for all.

In 1973, there were 500, 000 people of all races in the jails and prisons of this country. Today, there are over 2,000,000 with 1,000,000 being African-Americans. Estimates are that 80% are there for nonviolent drug crimes. At the same time, resources for drug prevention and rehabilitation lag behind the resources being put into trivialization of users. As they come out of jail, federal law excludes them from federal subsidized housing, puts time barriers on the ability to access higher education while businesses both private and public find it easier and easier to discriminate against hiring those who have been arrested, even if found not guilty. Health disparities and infant mortality for those of African-American descent are continuing at a high level despite the high levels of health care available to some.

Professor Andy Sum, an economics professor at Northeastern University in Boston, released a study in the summer of 2005 saying that unemployment for African American and Latino young men hovered at the 40% to 50% level in urban areas across the country. Blacks in the unions have been the hardest hit in terms of layoffs and terminations during the last ten years. Studies have also shown that the major affirmative action gains have been made by white women. Yes, while we have our Oprahs and P. Diddys, the reality is that the civil rights movement enabled Blacks to become part of the American system in an unprecedented way but by and large we have found the cupboard bare.

And what has happened to the struggle for human rights? If we use King's three evils as a measuring rod for gains in the human rights arena, we can see that the struggle is going backwards. That is, in terms of militarization the Defense budget is now $450 billion, not counting the supplemental appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan. Thus, Defense Department appropriations are at least half of the $900 billion dollars of the discretionary allocations of the federal government. The highest level of social spending is education at $50 billion. In terms of economic exploitation, workers' earning power has suffered unprecedented decline during the last five years. Tax cuts have been given to the rich while the federal debt (independent of the trillions borrowed from the Social Security Accounts) is over $500 billion and rising. The issue of racism speaks for itself. It is alive, well, and seeking to regain lost territory.

Can we expect that the Democrats with control of the House and/or Senate will change this situation? I would suggest not. True, they will take actions to soften the effect of the punitive policies, but it seems clear that the Democratic Party is also controlled by the corporations that are focused on their profits and not the welfare of the people of this country. While the Democrats are politically using the Iraq issue, even if the mounting pressure forces a change in the Bush policy toward Iraq, it does not seem that the Democrats have the will to challenge the militarization of the country which is the source of the future wars that will continue to deprive the American people of the quality of life that we have a right to expect, given the resources of this country. Kerry promised the American people in 2004 that he would increase the military budget. And when challenged recently on his observation on the class structure of the country and its relation to who serves in the military, he cut and ran.

To return to my opening question: What have we learned from the movement for civil rights that can aid us in today's struggles? I believe the chief lesson is that the gains in civil rights have not changed significantly the relatively static positions of Blacks at the bottom of the melting pot, despite the obscene displays of wealth by some of the Blacks who have "made it". Therefore, the last forty years remind us that Dr. King in 1968 again displayed his brilliance by not allowing us to smugly rest on our civil rights gains but urging us to join with all right thinking people in this country to challenge the dysfunctionality of the American political, social, and economic system through the Poor People's Campaign.

The above analysis is not meant to suggest that we should abandon the struggle for civil rights, which must be an ongoing part of our evolutionary struggle. However, we have to acknowledge that change in the quality of life needed by most of us can only happen by building a movement for human rights that can restructure the relationship of government policies to the needs of all the people of this country. Such a movement must focus both on building human and material infrastructures at the local and regional level that can restore our confidence in ourselves and our ability to join together to develop successful locally based strategies. However, such a movement has to raise the question of whether it is time for us to complete the Poor People's Campaign that Dr. King's assassination so tragically interrupted. Isn't it time to go back to Washington with the commitment to stay until Congress and the President develop the policies that will Fund the Dream that Dr. King envisioned?

BC Editorial Board member Chuck Turner is a Boston City Council member and founder of the Fund the Dream campaign. Turner has been an active force in progressive politics for decades. A vocal Boston activist since graduation from Harvard, Council Member Turner now represents Boston’s district 7, which includes parts of Roxbury, Dorchester, the South End, Kenmore and Fenway. He is the Chair of the Council’s Human Rights Committee, and Vice Chair of the Hunger and Homelessness Committee. He has most recently been involved in an effort to block the construction of Boston University’s Biosafety Level 4 Laboratory. Click here to contact Councilmember Turner.