The forgotten civil rights movement

I use the occasion of Black History Month to look at the progress of the black civil rights movement. Although I do not find it appropriate to single out a particular race for a month of history celebration, I do support events that get people talking about social concerns so important as race relations.

The recent observation of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday is an appropriate segue into Black History Month. I should note that I am also puzzled as to why King, great American though he was, should be singled out for a holiday (especially for observation by a University that cancels classes for neither Labor Day nor Independence Day), but again, I support the dialogue. This year, I noticed one particular lament echoed by various commentators during the days leading up to the King festivities: King is a "myth" to black children now. Kids today just don't understand what their parents and grandparents sacrificed to bring black civil rights where it is today. (I refer to "black" civil rights, first, because civil rights really don't have anything to do with race, which I believe was the point, and second, to distinguish it from other civil rights movements, such as the women's or gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender movements.)

It seems to me that the veterans of the black civil rights movement have succeeded in providing their children with an innocence of which their own childhoods were deprived. This is progress. The very fact that children today don't understand the hell of their parents' childhoods means that black children today don't go to school in a time when, for example, white students could openly make racist remarks with impunity.

Black children aren't systematically kept out of honors classes or magnet high schools. Black students are, in fact, systematically recruited by nearly every undergraduate, graduate and professional program in the country. In fact, most college administrations are so afraid of being branded "racist" that they bend over backwards in attempts to demonstrate sensitivity and a desire to compensate for the wrongs of earlier generations. Equality in the educational system is still debatable, but in some respects we have evidence that the pendulum has swung too far, as it necessarily will before it rests, in the height of the early and mid-1990s political-correctness frenzy. Say whatever you will about "institutional racism"--administrative policy might not be what you want, but it's nothing like it was in the 1960s.

I do not wish to imply that the black civil rights movement is at its terminus or that black Americans have nothing left to complain about. Obviously, more progress is desired. I must point out, however, that what might seem a signal of fading interest may also be viewed as a measure of success.

As inadequate as may be a comparison of the black civil rights movement to the American Revolution, I think it illustrates a useful point: In daily life I am not at all conscious of the tyranny and sacrifices my ancestors suffered to attain the freedoms I enjoy today and consider my right. I usually think about it only on patriotic holidays. But I don't think this lack of constant consciousness in any way belittles the achievements of those brave people--I think, to the contrary, that it illuminates the success of the struggle. That so many young black Americans seem, at least to their elders, to be taking their rights for granted signifies how ingrained in our society this acknowledgement is. The heroes of our parents' and grandparents' generations wanted their children to be able to take for granted what white children enjoyed as basic rights.

This highlights the perpetual generational dilemma--children don't (or perhaps can't) truly appreciate what their parents sacrifice for them. This is why we have holidays like Mother's Day and Father's Day, to force ourselves to think about those sacrifices. That we need these reminders is proof that their sacrifices were worth it. More generally speaking, we teach our children to revere the accomplishments of their ancestors, but that they do so only partially indicates an additional dimension of the achievement.

Maybe it's okay that King seems like a myth to today's children. I don't think he, or any one else in the cause, wanted today's black children to identify with him--the discrimination he knew was what he was fighting against. I don't think we run the risk of forgetting King or his movement; the evidence of its progress is too plain for that.