Most of Dr. King’s People Never Did Get There
”Black youth were especially marginalized by the leadership class’s insistence on narrow electoral and brokered politics. Mass movements cannot exist without the energy, creativity and risk-taking of youth – but the post-Civil Rights leadership class did not want a mass movement, nor was it interested in risking its newfound mobility. Put simply, with the exception of young people who might be groomed to the upwardly mobile, professional ranks, the leadership class had nothing that it wanted Black youth to do – other than stay out of jail and avoid embarrassing ‘The Race.’ That admonition was mooted by the larger white society, which by the mid-Seventies had embarked on a national policy of mass Black incarceration.”
Social change is made by youth, in all societies. The task of the influential sectors of Black America is to do what King thought necessary on April 3, 1968, “to develop a kind of dangerous unselfishness.” Make resources available to young people eager to organize and uplift their people. The Black elite must do this for their own salvation, because the crisis of mass incarceration and no employment has shattered every institutional connection with which the old order might communicate with the younger base among the masses in Black communities. New connections must be established, under liberating conditions. Trust the flow of history, and the goodness of your children – as did Dr. King, in the last public speech of his life, in Memphis: “When people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.”
Article Appeared @http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/most-dr-kings-people-never-did-get-there