days Reagan was sworn in as the president of the United States massive 100,000 On one level, the demonstration was to commemorate the birthday of the assassinated civil rights Martin Luther King. demonstration of the black community in the United States since 1963 was much more than that.
The mood of the demonstrators can be seen from the speeches: 'The battle we face today is that of human need versus corporate declared William Tate, a New York carworkers' leader.
'Ain't going to let Ronald Reagan Ain't going to let the Ku Klux Klan turn us around, vowed Jess Jackson ship, or one of the banners.
The demonstration was a warning to the incoming Reagan administraLed. Mane the warning has not been heeded. observers of the US scene are predicting a new upsurge of black militancy in the ghettoes. Subsidies Vernon Jordan, who was recently the target of an has 'There's unusual amount hysteria in the black communities.' It is not hard to understand why.
Take the example budget cuts announced and his cohorts. Nearly dollars have been sliced from the federal food stamp very poor. Aid to families with depen dent children, the most elfare programmes will be reduc i over a billion dolla Recipients who are unemployed will be forced to perform 'community work' in exchange for their welfare payments. Legal aid for the poor has been cut completely and housing sidies will be cut by over a third On top of all that there will be huge reductions in financial benefits or the ill, the old and the very young. Socialist Challenge 16 July 1981 Ronald lunches Coloured People, in philosophy leaaei But the largest. intention zones' in the inner city areas.
After his NAACP, 'hardship, havoc, profit, minorities', complained, been said before.
Income leading statements at the was his claim equal treatment of all citizens'.
only 15 have gone to black general. a black leader don Johnson are long gone, said, As far back as of tage of black youth broke through the 30 per and it has stayed there the latest Reagan two billion 1978 tually increased decade.
basic of al vances. HACK Los Angeles, cent of the population blacks have won The latter will be hit by a five billion cut in the subsidy given for school It was hardly surprising then that when Reagan addressed the National Association for the Advancement of Denver, weeks ago, he received a cool reception. Explaining his right wing, racist Reagan sald 'needy' have become 'too dependent on government', and he declared his create 'free-enterprise speech the director of Benjamin Hooks predicted that Reagan's policies will bring new despair, pain and and other hack speakel 'We held out hope, but he didn't give us anything. It's al The most outlandish of Reagan's NAACP meeting that will not retreat on the nation's commitment to A quick glance at the make-up of own administraion shows what a lie that is: of the 450 top jobs in hand-picked government That is a reflection of the US in the promised great society' of US president Lyn if indeed they ever existed in the first place 1971, the percenwithout a job cent ceiling ever since. cent. . The 610,880 compared $18,370 for whites, a gap which ac during the There have been a few token admayors OCCI elected in such cities as Washington, New Orleans but only 1 per cent of all elective offices in the country are held by blacks&compared to nearly 12 per Even this minimal advance is now under threat for those elections which have been due, part, to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which put millions of blacks on voting the rolls in the southern states and acted against racist gerrymandering.
Now, the new Republican of the Us senate Judiciary Committee, Strom Thurmond plans to scrap the Act when it comes up tol renewal next year. Reagan is thought to be of the same mind Another reverse in the civil rights field has recently been recorded: an act of Congress, passed in 1968 and designed to outlaw discrimination in selling houses has notoriously weak, and an attempt to strengthen it failed in the Congress at chair- the start of the year.
But issues that increasingly black leaders. This is not surprising. In every region of the US the ratio of black Cal lies whites are falling, since the mid-1970s.
71 per cent to 58, in the West from 77 been per cent to 62, in the Midwest from 73
----- pull-quotes -----
demonstrated in Washington, the centre of US government.