Search Result(s) for: “bayard rustin”
The Rise and Fall of the Blue-Collar Black Middle Class
Good union jobs built America’s blue-collar black middle class. But the percentage of black workers in manufacturing has been halved since the 1970s, yielding poverty and precarity. We can’t achieve racial justice without a movement to win those jobs back.
Why Elites Love Identity Politics
The Democratic Party at every level spent years embracing identity politics that mostly served the interests of professionals, argues Catalyst editor Vivek Chibber. We need a return to class.
A. J. Muste Was a Prophet of the 20th-Century US Left
This Easter, we should remember the rich tradition of Christian socialism in the US. And one of that tradition’s most important figures is the radical leader A. J. Muste, whose religious faith animated his commitment to socialism and nonviolence.
American Socialists: Study the Civil Rights Movement
Socialists in the US are more likely to be experts on the Russian Revolution than the American civil rights movement. That’s a mistake: this homegrown revolution is a strategic guidebook for winning social change today.
Everything You Know About Mass Incarceration Is Wrong
The US carceral state is a monstrosity with few parallels in history — destroying untold millions of lives and families in just a few decades. But most accounts fail to understand how it was created in the first place, and how we can finally dismantle it.
Bob Moses (1935–2021)
Legendary civil rights champion Bob Moses died over the weekend at age eighty-six. He was a brilliant organizer who believed deeply in the capacity of ordinary people to change the world.
A. Philip Randolph Was Once “the Most Dangerous Negro in America”
The organizer of the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech was also the leader of the first successful black labor union. For A. Philip Randolph, labor and civil rights were one and the same.
Debating Black Freedom
A look back at Liberator, an anticolonial magazine that operated during a golden age for black radical publications.
Affirmative Action’s Labor Roots
Affirmative action was a hard-won victory by left-labor activists. It must be defended.
The Socialist Case for School Integration
America’s schools are more segregated than ever. We can integrate them — but only by forcing the state to expand universal public institutions and redistribute wealth.
The Lessons of Ocean Hill-Brownsville
The 1968 Ocean Hill-Brownsville teachers strikes pitted teachers and parents against each other. But they didn't have to. Teachers and parents today can avoid those past mistakes and create coalitions against racism and austerity.
The Murder of Malcolm X
There was nothing J. Edgar Hoover feared more than a charismatic black radical who could inspire the oppressed to fight back. And that’s why, according to a compelling new series, the FBI had its fingerprints all over Malcolm X’s murder.
The March on Washington Advanced a Radical Vision for Society That Remains Unfulfilled
Sixty years ago today, hundreds of thousands gathered at the Washington Mall, where they heard Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Since then, we’ve beaten a retreat from the march’s vision of racial and economic justice.
How McCarthyism and the Red Scare Hurt the Black Freedom Struggle
In the years immediately following World War II, the movement for black equality, rooted in the militancy of black workers, was making massive strides. The McCarthyist anticommunist campaign of the late 1940s dealt a hammer blow to that project, attacking its unions and scattering its activists, ultimately narrowing the ambitions of the black freedom movement.
The Freedom Rides Made the Most of a Multiracial Activist Base
Today’s protests for racial justice are strikingly multiracial. Civil rights organizers have historically considered this an asset and often used it creatively and strategically to their advantage, as they did during the Freedom Rides through the American South in 1961.
Democrats Should Be Ashamed of the Rejection of Medicare for All in the DNC Platform
On Medicare for All, the Left has won the battle of ideas. But that’s not enough, as the DNC’s rejection of M4A shows. We have to get serious about overcoming the entrenched economic and political power that is stopping us from having free public health care for everyone.
Pauli Murray Was a Civil Rights Trailblazer
Organizer, lawyer, professor, priest — Pauli Murray held many titles throughout her life. But as a black lesbian with a burning hatred of oppression, her goal was always the same: to challenge discrimination and topple the brutal hierarchies of US society.
The Meaning of January 6, 2021
A long history suggests that while the crisis of the moment dictates directing the state’s security resources and personnel toward the Right, this focus will, inevitably, shift back to the Left.
Despite Everything, Queer Leftists Survived
The history of queer liberation movements is often talked about as distinct from the history of the Left. But in the first half of the twentieth century, queer people were abundant among American radical leftists — decades before the rise of an organized mass movement for gay rights.