-------- Original Message -------- Subject: [BRC-NEWS] The Black Radical Congress Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 15:15:58 -0400 From: Bill Fletcher <BFletcher4 at compuserve.com> To: brc-news at lists.tao.ca
May 24, 2000
The Black Radical Congress: Youth, the Black Working Class and the Challenges of the 21st Century
By Bill Fletcher, Jr. <BFletcher4 at compuserve.com>
Two events led to me think about the challenges facing the Black Radical Congress as it approaches its June 23-25 National Organizing Conference at Wayne State University in Detroit.
A student activist came to see me the other day. I thought that she wanted to talk about her job future. Actually she wanted to talk about the Black Radical Congress and Black activism. She wanted to know what she could do to get involved. She was particularly intolerant of what she identified as a propensity for many of her peers to talk on and on, but say nothing. More importantly, she found it unacceptable that they were unwilling to act.
I was struck by this conversation because her energy and excitement were contagious. There was no way to sit back and not be affected by her eagerness to jump into the fray.
But what also struck me was that this conversation occurred on the eve of the birthday of Malcolm X (May 19th). Had he lived, Malcolm would have been 75 this year. Quite a thought! Yet what was more striking for me was to remember how old he was when he was taken from us:
There is a tendency for many of us in the baby-boomer generation to treat anyone under the age of 40 as being youth. We often go further than that: we pigeon hole too many activists under the age of 40, insisting that they speak only about youth and youth issues.
Malcolm did not speak for a youth movement. He spoke for a people's movement. And, while it is certainly true that many of his elders contended that he was too young to be doing so, his leadership went beyond his years.
We need to keep this in mind as we enter the 21st century. There are a new crop of activists and leaders emerging who have something to say, not only about the issues facing their generation, but also about the crisis facing Black America.
One of those issues remains the question of the Black working class. Readers of my columns know that I am almost singularly focused on this matter, and am particularly concerned with the intersection between youth and the Black working class. I was reviewing statistics on the state of Black America, and our situation is not improving. For the Black working class the situation is actually going from bad to worse. While it is true that unemployment is dropping, for Black workers the percentage remains double the rate of white workers, an historic pattern in both good times and bad.
Let us note that in the face of the continued erosion of the living standard of the Black worker, there is a relative silence in this country. Black America's current leadership crop is largely and strangely complacent in the context of this situation. Many Black youth, at least college youth, seem to have come to the conclusion that entrepreneurialism rather than activism is the path for advancement out of the abyss. For the millions of working class Black youth, however, there is no more likelihood that they will become successful entrepreneurs than it is likely that they will get into the National Basketball Association. Most will find themselves either unemployed, underemployed or in one or another working class job. That is the reality of life in the USA.
So, who speaks for Black working class youth? What is the organizational vehicle which will advance their interests? While hip-hop lyrics may speak to many of their conditions, those lyrics do not translate -- or, at least have not -- into a program of action or a high level of organization.
Thus, while it may sound like a cliche, the leadership we need now is particularly from the ranks of Black working class youth. We need them to help shape the program and organization which speaks to the crisis facing Black America, particularly as they experience it. For the Black Radical Congress in its efforts to sink deeper roots within the Black working class, and to use its Detroit Conference to strengthen its program and organization, this challenge must be moved to the forefront. The future lies among Black working class youth and the BRC's ability to serve as their vehicle for struggle.
The June 1998 Chicago conference of the Black Radical Congress demonstrated the capacity and potential for a cross-generational alliance which can advance the future of Black America. This June we must take further steps to strengthen that alliance; field organizers who can help to build the struggle for justice and power; and link with the struggles which Black working class youth are conducting everyday in their efforts to survive and to retain their dignity.
Bill Fletcher, Jr. is Assistant to the President of the AFL-CIO, the National Organizer of the Black Radical Congress, and a long-time activist in the Black Freedom/Liberation Movement.
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