Due to a decision by the Supreme Court to strike down key sections of a law that protects black voters, the 50th anniversary of the Martin Luther King, Jr.-led March on Washington has gone from being seen by many as primarily about the past to being urgently about the present.
Senior figures in the civil rights movement have told the Guardian that fast-escalating resentment over the treatment of black Americans will result in larger-than-expected crowds descending on Washington next month for the commemorations of King’s famous address.
George Zimmerman’s acquittal combined with the toxic Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act have fueled a renewed debate over race relations in the US and reinvigorated the civil rights movement. In Washington last Friday, Barack Obama delivered a surprisingly bold speech about the issue.
Last Saturday, vigils organized by the veteran civil rights campaigner Al Sharpton were held across the US to protest against the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin as he returned home armed with nothing more than a bag of Skittles and a drink from a convenience store.
But the King commemorations in August are likely to be even more pointed. Many believe the Zimmerman case, as well as the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act have demonstrated in stark terms how far America has moved backwards from realizing the dream articulated by King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.
In a recent CNN/RCC Pole, just a third said they agree with the court’s decision to strike down part of the Voting Rights Act, while 51 percent disagreed.
Knowledge about, and disapproval of the VRA decision was especially high among African Americans, 71 percent of whom expressed disagreement with the ruling. Just 3 percent were undecided, while 16 percent of all adults had no opinion.
Other racial groups, however, also disapproved: Hispanic Americans disagreed by 50 percent while 40 percent agreed, and whites disagreed by 48 to 33 percent.
Specifically, those dissenting believed that the Supreme Court effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval. That is at the heart of the issue.
The court as usual divided along ideological lines, and the two sides drew sharply different lessons from the history of the civil rights movement and the nation’s progress in rooting out racial discrimination in voting. At the core of the disagreement was whether racial minorities continued to face any barriers to voting in states with a history of discrimination.
“Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote for the majority. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” What that seems to say is that creating obstacles to deter in blacks from voting is okay. It is not.
According to that same CNN/ORC poll conducted earlier this year, roughly half of Americans still did not believe the vision King set out in 1963 has been fulfilled. Survey data indicates that view has remained unchanged throughout the duration of Obama’s presidency. Amazing.
Obama is understood to have been invited to play a central role in the King commemorations, which are likely to be a global spectacle, but has not yet publicly committed himself.
Until last Friday, the president had not said much about the Zimmerman verdict and was coming under growing pressure to take a lead on the issue. Some African American leaders were saying privately that the president was failing to grasp the intensity of feeling over the case and at the previous day’s White House press briefing, Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, was repeatedly pressed on why the president had failed to take a more public stance.
But in an unexpected move on Friday, Obama appeared at the White House press briefing to address the issue head on. “You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son,” he said. “Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago.”
“And when you think about why, in the African American community, at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that—that doesn’t go away.”
The president added that “both the outcome and the aftermath” of the case might have been different if Martin had been a white teenager. Drawing from personal experience, he added, “There are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of being followed in a department store. That includes me.” He added, those African-American men like himself, “Could hear the clicks of car doors as they approach. And see old women clutching their handbags.” Not a pretty picture, but true.
In remarks borrowed from King’s 1963 speech, the president told reporters that Americans should now ask themselves: “Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character?”
I’m afraid the answer to that is “the color of their skin.” Color is still the primary factor in the way white people view African-Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, even Asians and Native Americans. Racism lingers on.
America’s only defense is challenging racism where it appears and shutting it down. If not, the price to pay for millions Americans of color will be “legally” losing the vote in at least nine states. That not only creates anger for the disenfranchised but strikes a deadly blow at democracy. I wish Justice Roberts could let King’s light shine in through his thick skull and finally get that point.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com.He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.
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Plans for 50th Anniversary of MLK March on Washington revised after Zimmerman acquittal
Posted on July 26, 2013 by Jerry Mazza
Due to a decision by the Supreme Court to strike down key sections of a law that protects black voters, the 50th anniversary of the Martin Luther King, Jr.-led March on Washington has gone from being seen by many as primarily about the past to being urgently about the present.
Senior figures in the civil rights movement have told the Guardian that fast-escalating resentment over the treatment of black Americans will result in larger-than-expected crowds descending on Washington next month for the commemorations of King’s famous address.
George Zimmerman’s acquittal combined with the toxic Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act have fueled a renewed debate over race relations in the US and reinvigorated the civil rights movement. In Washington last Friday, Barack Obama delivered a surprisingly bold speech about the issue.
Last Saturday, vigils organized by the veteran civil rights campaigner Al Sharpton were held across the US to protest against the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin as he returned home armed with nothing more than a bag of Skittles and a drink from a convenience store.
But the King commemorations in August are likely to be even more pointed. Many believe the Zimmerman case, as well as the recent Supreme Court ruling on the Voting Rights Act have demonstrated in stark terms how far America has moved backwards from realizing the dream articulated by King on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in 1963.
In a recent CNN/RCC Pole, just a third said they agree with the court’s decision to strike down part of the Voting Rights Act, while 51 percent disagreed.
Knowledge about, and disapproval of the VRA decision was especially high among African Americans, 71 percent of whom expressed disagreement with the ruling. Just 3 percent were undecided, while 16 percent of all adults had no opinion.
Other racial groups, however, also disapproved: Hispanic Americans disagreed by 50 percent while 40 percent agreed, and whites disagreed by 48 to 33 percent.
Specifically, those dissenting believed that the Supreme Court effectively struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by a 5-to-4 vote, freeing nine states, mostly in the South, to change their election laws without advance federal approval. That is at the heart of the issue.
The court as usual divided along ideological lines, and the two sides drew sharply different lessons from the history of the civil rights movement and the nation’s progress in rooting out racial discrimination in voting. At the core of the disagreement was whether racial minorities continued to face any barriers to voting in states with a history of discrimination.
“Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts wrote for the majority. “While any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to current conditions.” What that seems to say is that creating obstacles to deter in blacks from voting is okay. It is not.
According to that same CNN/ORC poll conducted earlier this year, roughly half of Americans still did not believe the vision King set out in 1963 has been fulfilled. Survey data indicates that view has remained unchanged throughout the duration of Obama’s presidency. Amazing.
Obama is understood to have been invited to play a central role in the King commemorations, which are likely to be a global spectacle, but has not yet publicly committed himself.
Until last Friday, the president had not said much about the Zimmerman verdict and was coming under growing pressure to take a lead on the issue. Some African American leaders were saying privately that the president was failing to grasp the intensity of feeling over the case and at the previous day’s White House press briefing, Obama’s press secretary, Jay Carney, was repeatedly pressed on why the president had failed to take a more public stance.
But in an unexpected move on Friday, Obama appeared at the White House press briefing to address the issue head on. “You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son,” he said. “Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago.”
“And when you think about why, in the African American community, at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that—that doesn’t go away.”
The president added that “both the outcome and the aftermath” of the case might have been different if Martin had been a white teenager. Drawing from personal experience, he added, “There are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of being followed in a department store. That includes me.” He added, those African-American men like himself, “Could hear the clicks of car doors as they approach. And see old women clutching their handbags.” Not a pretty picture, but true.
In remarks borrowed from King’s 1963 speech, the president told reporters that Americans should now ask themselves: “Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character?”
I’m afraid the answer to that is “the color of their skin.” Color is still the primary factor in the way white people view African-Americans, Hispanics, Latinos, even Asians and Native Americans. Racism lingers on.
America’s only defense is challenging racism where it appears and shutting it down. If not, the price to pay for millions Americans of color will be “legally” losing the vote in at least nine states. That not only creates anger for the disenfranchised but strikes a deadly blow at democracy. I wish Justice Roberts could let King’s light shine in through his thick skull and finally get that point.
Jerry Mazza is a freelance writer and life-long resident of New York City. An EBook version of his book of poems “State Of Shock,” on 9/11 and its after effects is now available at Amazon.com and Barnesandnoble.com. He has also written hundreds of articles on politics and government as Associate Editor of Intrepid Report (formerly Online Journal). Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.