50 Years Later: We March on Washington to End Racism, Materialism, and Militarism

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http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/08/21-3


The 50th Anniversary Coalition for the March on Washington include the following organizations that convened in 1963: the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC); the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); the National Urban League (NUL); and the A. Phillip Randolph Institute (APRI), plus the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW). In addition this new coalition includes: The King Center, the National Action Network, the Children's Defense Fund, the National Council of Churches, the National Park Service and more than 20 other human rights and social change organizations are actively involved in this mobilization movement.

After Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic and heroic 1967 “Beyond Vietnam” speech, where he opposed the U.S. war in Southeast Asia, he received a barrage of criticism from editorial boards, donors and even other civil rights leaders.

Ralph Bunche (who in 1950 became the first person of color to receive the Nobel Peace Prize) told the New York Times, “[King] should realize that his anti-U. S. in Vietnam crusade is bound to alienate many friends and supporters of the civil rights movement and greatly weaken it – an ironic twist for a civil rights leader.”

King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference faced both financial and political repercussions for not “staying in their lane” and just sticking to “civil rights issues.”

Today some have questioned the need for the peace movement to stand up for racial equity. How, they ask, does justice for Trayvon Martin, immigrant rights or ending racial profiling contribute to changing U.S. foreign policy?

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