A Special Marxist IQ for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the March on Washington by Norman Markowitz

by: Friday 23 August 2013

 

I am going to Washington this Friday on a Bus, something a quarter of a million people did fifty years ago, if I can get on the union bus, which is good news for the March turnout and not such good news for me

 So much has changed and yet much in reality remains the same fifty years later.  I have dedicated this Marxist IQ to the March, what preceded it and what followed it. It is important always to remember that the peoples triumphs of the past must not be used to say that comparable struggles are not necessary in the present, as those forces who fought the Civil Rights movement in the past say today, that is, its victories mean that the struggle is over

 

 

  1. The March on Washington was organized  to
    1. call for fair treatment for Blacks under the Southern system of segregation
    2. mobilize support for legislation that would seek to end segregation and discrimination in public accommodations and employment through the country
    3. build support for the Democratic party and President Kennedy
    4. challenge Southern racism

 

      

 

  1. The March took place in a global context in which
    1. free markets and “free enterprise” were in the ascendancy
    2. the Soviet Union and its allies were collapsing
    3. “non white” peoples had won many national liberation struggles against colonialism  
    4. The U.S. economy was in crisis

 

  1. Victor Perlo, leading American Marxist Economist, saw  racism in the U.S as
    1. separate from the class struggle
    2. something that the white working class supported
    3. a way for capitalists to  extract higher profits by  paying African American workers less than “white workers,” which  also depressed wages and salaries generally
    4. something  that could be  fought by winning over the corporations and the media

 

 

  1. Analyzing the role of racism in U.S. society, the Communist Party, USA, contended
    1. that African-Americans were exploited as workers
    2. that African-Americans were  "nationally"oppressed as immigrant  groups, defined as "second class citizens       
    3. that African-Americans were oppressed by  color racism, which sought to build a wall between them and all other groups
    4. all of the above

 

  1. Over the last fifty years, we can say that
    1. the Civil Rights Acts  and Voting Rights Acts of the 1960s ended institutional and ideological racism
    2. Institutional and Ideological Racism are worse than they were in 1963
    3. major victories were won along with significant reversals, and  voter suppression campaigns and assaults on affirmative action still threaten today  key provisions of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which followed the March 
    4. The various sections of the African- American labor force have incomes comparable to the various sections of the "white" labor force

Congratulations to Sean Mulligan, whom I am sure will get all of these right, as he has in past Marxist IQ's and, of course, to E.E.W. Clay

 

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    A note on question 3: Vic Perlo, with his Economics of Racism may have had some minor problems in theory,
    it was generally sound.
    The CPUSA, as some, mainly white members, may have seen the problem of racism as African Americans not seeing the problem of white masters of capital blinding them(African Americans) to the fact that labor had to be unified, and as long as labor was not, capital would rule over all labor. Therefore, the tasks of the CPUSA was to convince African Americans there interests lie in the liberation of labor-that they not realize this was the crux of the problem.
    This view of course, is racist, chauvinist, paternal and false.
    With few exceptions, the general tenor of the African American liberation movement has respected the dignity of labor and fought for the unity and equality of all labor, especially realizing that if this equality were not made a fact and priority, labor would continue to be divided and thereby, conquered by its enemy, big capital.
    The movement of giants in the anti-slavery and Civil Rights movement, from Harriet Tubman, to Ana Julia Cooper, from Frederick Douglass, to W. E. B. Du Bois, to his disciple, M L K King, highlighted here, known for this fight for this economic, social, political, and cultural equality. We should also include those often excluded from this list; John Brown, Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, Harriet Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, and even Benjamin Franklin.

    Posted by E.E.W. Clay, 01/23/2014 1:10pm (11 years ago)

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    Posted by Sean Mulligan, 08/28/2013 12:39am (11 years ago)

  • 1-2 Congress was in the throes of trying to push through the epochal Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    2-3 Nonwhite national revolutions had shaken up the post WWII world.

    3-3 Capitalists took advantage of the society's tolerance of racial social/economic inequality to weaken the position of workers in all groups.

    4-4 All of the above.

    5-3 The progress of the sixties has been under attack for 40 years and significant erosion has occurred.

    Posted by Michael Sweney, 08/23/2013 3:04pm (11 years ago)

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