Still Forgetting Walter

I swung by the "Restoring Honor" rally on Saturday which attempted (as many have pointed out) to appropriate the legacy and meaning of the black freedom struggle for the religious right/Tea Party movement. As Saddam Hussein might say, such an assertion may represent the "mother of all banalogies." This is one of those cases where interpretations of history do not even come into play, we are talking simple facts. In this case, it is an indisputable truth that Martin Luther King, Jr. and the key figures around him were progressives and had strong leanings towards Scandinavian style social democracy or more radical forms of democratic socialism. The black freedom struggle had an important economic component, one which many in the movement felt could only fully be addressed by first winning civil rights, but certainly not only through such measures. Figures in the movement forthrightly identified as progressives and attacked conservative political figures and ideas. Really the only way to miss all this is to pretend (as so many seem to) that the entire message of the movement is summed up in King's "content of their character" line, even a reading of the rest of the "I Have a Dream Speech" showcases the importance King placed on poverty and power relations.

It was this sort of assertive amnesia which reached its zenith during a video tribute to King at the rally. The longest single image from that montage featured a slow-motion shot of King at the rally sharing a joke with Walter Reuther, whose birthday is today. Now, I didn't expect people to recognize Reuther, but still the irony was overwhelming. Reuther was then president of the United Auto Workers, perhaps the most powerful (and one of the more progressive) unions in the U.S. at the time. Reuther and his compatriots, while a pragmatic lot, retained a vision of society that much more closely resembles the nightmares Beck sees in Obama's policies than in the reality of the current administration. They wanted to transform the U.S. economy through social insurance programs and economic planning to ensure full employment, good jobs, and even sustainable development.

It was these very views that helped cement an alliance (albeit one which strained and even broke at points) between the black freedom struggle and the labor movement. To cite one concrete detail, a good portion of the funding for the logistics of the August 28, 1963 rally (including the sound system which brought "I Have a Dream" to the world) came from the UAW's coffers. If Glenn Beck wants to be an heir to this he can feel free, but I have my doubts.