“Inequality is a scourge on our society,” he said, “We’re really almost at a zero moment, in which the concentration of wealth is coalescing around such a very small number of people and the vast oceans of desperate Americans are clamoring for some sort of answers.”Ĭlarence Lang (author of Grassroots at the Gateway: Class Politics and Black Freedom Struggle in St. Keith Ellison (D-MN) tied the struggle to secure the four unmet goals of the march to the fight to halt the growth of economic inequality. The symposium and anniversary of the march provide an opportunity to reignite the, “conversation about what we must do to finish the march towards justice and shared prosperity,” Baker said.
Green said, “Workers were the backbone of the movement, embodying the link between economic justice and civil rights.”Īrlene Holt Baker (Executive Vice President, AFL-CIO) said that achieving the economic goals of the march on Washington are paramount not only for African Americans but for all working Americans as millions are struggling to find decent jobs and earn decent wages.
On Monday, July 22, 2013, some of the nation’s foremost thinkers on race and economics were brought together by the Economic Policy Institute to discuss how to achieve these economic goals, including decent housing, adequate and integrated education, jobs for all, and a living wage at a symposium called The Unfinished March.Įrnest Green (former Assistant Secretary of Labor under President Carter and one of the “Little Rock Nine”) noted that the economic goals were central to the Civil Rights Movement.
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom remains a seminal moment of the Civil Rights Movement, however, the economic imperatives civil rights leaders demanded 50 years ago have been largely forgotten and remain unmet.
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