“You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must
be taken out of the slums. . . . There must be a better distribution of wealth
. . . and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,
speech to the SCLC staff, Frogmore, S.C., November 14, 1966
Democratic socialists Bayard Rustin, Walter Reuther and A.
Philip Randolph
helped organize the March on Washington for Jobs and
Freedom 50 years ago.
They knew that ending legal segregation and winning
political rights for African Americans were essential, but not sufficient, to
ensure justice and freedom for all. Without access to good education, to health
care and above all to decent jobs that paid living wages, the vote was not
enough.
Today, as the recent Supreme Court decision has emboldened
racists and reactionaries in many state governments to roll back the electoral
influence of African Americans and Latinos, we are marching again to defend the
gains in voting rights of the last 50 years. These rights are essential to
overturn Stand Your Ground laws and to end the mass incarceration of young
people of color and the detention and deportation of undocumented immigrants.
