The US black revolt began on the cotton plantations, not at the Lincoln Memorial

We live in an age of celebrity, when concentration on the individual is all. So I am not surprised to see how the recent celebrations of Martin Luther King's masterful piece of oratory, delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC 40 years ago, have eclipsed one of the greatest mass movements in American history.

It began roughly three years before King's speech when blacks walked off cotton plantations in Tennessee and established a tent city of the dispossessed. With the introduction of man-made fibres, cotton faced severe competition. The planters turned the screws of oppression on the black serfs who had kept that industry going since slavery. There was little or no political representation to strengthen their revolt. Blacks had the vote only theoretically. For instance, in some cases, they were asked to recite the entire US constitution before they could register.

Black revolt spread from Tennessee throughout the south and was joined by black college students across America, and by white students, too. These young people challenged racial discrimination in public places. Soon all America was consumed by the conflict. The demand for a march on Washington grew. To this day, nobody can trace the origins of the idea.

The Kennedy regime was terrified. It gathered a gang of black gradualists and placed them at the head of the march. King shifted first this way, then that. From his indecisiveness, this determined mass movement lifted him to great heights of oratory. But his speech had no clear programme or policy because King had no record of rootedness in the movement of the blacks from the plantations.

And 40 years on? Mississippi has not been transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice (his words). Negroes in New York (and elsewhere) still have nothing to vote for. In Georgia, the sons of former slave masters do not sit at the table of brotherhood with their former slaves. In fact, young blacks have won a battle for positive discrimination in university admissions only by a whisker. Although the Civil Rights Bill was to guarantee the right to vote and other equalities, we have now come full circle. Blacks in Miami were denied voting rights by Republicans in the latest presidential election. But I am sure blacks will return to centre stage in American life: the story that began in Tennessee ain't half finished yet.

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website