Many movements are known by a single event, which brought them to public eye and popularity. These windows of opportunity are often seen as risky at the time, but essential in retrospect. In class today, we watched a documentary on one of these defining moments, "The March", depicted the historical March on "Washington for Jobs and Freedom".
In a sense, the civil rights movement started long before 1963, when the march was put into action. Rather, the seeds of the protest began hundreds of years before that, as immigrants across the world came to America. This all came to a head in the 1960's, in which cities like Birmingham Alabama would be distastefully referred to as "Binghamton" due to the amount of explosive-based violence which took place in her streets (See AL.com).
One individual, Eugene "Bull" Conner, the police chief of Birmingham, was also known for his horrid prisons, and brutality. As activists took to the streets, he took to the water hoses, and dogs to discourage any who dare opposed segregation.
Despite all of this heated emotion, and violence, Martin Luther King Jr. saw this as a window of opportunity. While A. Philip Randolf was the first leader to advocate mass action, MLK wanted to be the one to put it into grand reality. Working in tangent with Bayard Rustin, whom was traveling to Birmingham, they began to formulate this dream of a March on Washington. So, on July, 2nd 1963 leaders met to organize the march in the hopes not only to draw national attention, but to in a sense, force the hand of JFK to better address their grievances.
Despite the assassination of Medgar Evans, and wiretapping from the FBI, the plan went forward. The crowdfunding at large, pushed by volunteers, word of mouth and pamphlets alike, spurred the campaign for Jobs and Freedom forward.
What the leaders of the civil rights movement never could have expected, however, was the sheer scale of success that came from this grassroots campaign. Common activists and celebrities alike came to Washington D.C. at an astounding 100 buses an hour. The attendance at one point, was not in the thousands, but the hundreds of thousands (See Stanford.edu) This all culminated in the first speech most Americans ever heard, from King, and it was his fully televised, and grandest speech yet. Finally, leaders of the movement met with president JFK, in which they were congratulated for their work.
The Red Menace Poster
What I found the most interesting about the documentary, lies within the intertwined history of the Civil Rights movement, and the great Red Scare. In fact, JFK spoke with MLK concerning FBI investigation into communistic infiltration into the emerging movement, as many feared civil rights leaders had been compromised by a communist influence. MLK then was given an ultimatum, he had to let go of two leaders for march to go forward, (Jack O'dell, Stanley Levison) and receive JFK's blessing. This happened in tandem with FBI wiretapping, as they tried to dig up dirt upon prominent leaders, in order to tarnish their reputation.
I draw many similarities here to the "cancel culture" we see today. While back then, one could brand an opponent as a "communist", and destroy their reputation, now phrases like "racist" or "bigoted" hold the same effect. I often fear a new McCarthyism, in which prison sentences are handed out with such accusations. The one thing we have seen from the Red Scare which is reassuring, however, is that this too will pass, in being the divisive aspect of our time.
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