Many prominent civil rights figures were socialists — believing there was a link between racial justice and economic justice. As socialists they wanted decent jobs for all, an end to poverty, decent housing for all, decent education for all, human rights for all, rule by the people (democracy) over our political and economic life. Such values were contained in A “Freedom Budget” for All Americans that they put forward in 1966. Maybe it’s time for a new freedom budget. . .
Paul Le Blanc is professor of history at La Roche College and the author of many titles, including From Marx to Gramsci and Marx, Lenin and the Revolutionary Experience. He is co-author (with Michael D. Yates) of A Freedom Budget for All Americans: Recapturing the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in the Struggle for Economic Justice Today (Monthly Review Press, forthcoming in August 2013).
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