Gains and Slow Dancing

Black and white together, a quarter of a million people gathered in Washington a quarter of a century ago for the March for Jobs and Freedom. The marchers carried placards civilly urging such sweeping demands as “An end to bias now” and “Effective civil-rights laws now.” They arrivedon 30 trains and 2,000 buses, and they filled the Mall as far as the eye could see. They listened as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told them and countless more watching on television that he had a dream, “a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character.”

On that day in 1963 Clay Carson, black, a college student from New Mexico, had his only first-hand view of King from the ranks of the Marchon Washington. Today Carson, a Stanford history professor, edits King’s papers. On that same day Barbara Mikulski, white, a social worker in Baltimore, watched the march on television as her clients were doing. She was so moved that she vowed she would never be on the sidelines, “never be part of an audience again if I believed in something.” Today Mikulski is a U.S. senator.

Carson and Mikulski, both of whom have been active campaigners for equal rights, are like thousands of other Americans who had their lives touched that day. The march was an awakening of hope for millions of Americans who knew the sting of prejudice and were already resisting it. It was an awakening of conscience for those who would join the struggle largely borne by Southern blacks.

Much has changed since that hot afternoon; much has not. Less than three weeks after the march, four little girls were killed in a Birmingham church. Racial violence still troubles America; Howard Beach was only yesterday. In 1963 the unemployment percentage for blacks was twice as high as for whites. By 1987 the gap had grown. In 1963 white family income was $6,500; black families earned $3,500. By 1986 a white family’s median income was $26,175; a black family’s was $15,080.

But there have been enormous gains, especially political. Black votes made the difference in electing several U.S. senators in Southern states in 1986. There are now 6,681 black elected officials, including 303 mayors and 23 members of Congress. This year a black American, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, ran second in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

The March for Jobs and Freedom in many ways came at a simpler time for America. Those who marched, and those who watched and wished that they had marched, thought the force of numbers and moral certainty would carry the day. Americans know better now. Each gain must be accompanied by a slow dance of accommodation. Some barriers that keep too many blacks in poverty still seem impenetrable because not enough people, black and white, and not enough leaders will roll up their sleeves and say, “No more.”

This country has done much since that quarter of a million people swayed to the sounds of “We Shall Overcome.” But it has not changed the lyric to the past tense.