In recent weeks, a federal job guarantee has rapidly gained momentum, with many Democrats backing the idea. That’s welcome news to those who have long advocated the goal — activists in black freedom movements and the National Jobs for All Coalition, as well as contemporary economists like William Darity Jr., Darrick Hamilton, Pavlina Tcherneva, and Stephanie Kelton.

The recent discussion is something of a throwback to a previous era. From 1944 to 1980, full employment proposals found themselves in the Democratic Party’s platform every four years. And in the 1970s, Coretta Scott King and others in the civil rights movement pushed for full employment as the next phase of their struggle for freedom.

Their efforts propelled the passage of the Humphrey-Hawkins Full Employment Act in 1978. Although the law lacked many of the most far-reaching components of earlier versions, it still contained important elements — especially the requirement that the Federal Reserve facilitate maximum employment.