On Rosa Parks
From the Editors The editorial board of the Peoples Tribune joins the millions of Americans in expressing our condolences over the passing of Ms. Rosa Parks, whose defiance of the segregation laws led to the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott and the formation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
There is no need here to recount this brave womans role in the struggle for African American equality. The national media is doing that.
The ruling class makes icons out of leading individuals from the oppressed class. They do this in order to hide and distort the role of the masses and the actual situation that allowed such outstanding individuals to step forward. We revolutionaries must constantly assert that leading individuals act within a certain political, economic and historic context. It is necessary to point out the factors that made their individual contributions possible. The fight for civil and equal rights was reasserted in 1945 as a million Black veterans returned to civilian life. First class soldiers, they were not willing to go back to second-class citizenship. They were the primary driving force in the developing struggle for African American equality. Secondly, the mechanization of southern agriculture destroyed the economic rationale for American apartheid. By driving millions from their scattered farms into the inner cities it created a new political force. Third, the Socialist bloc was using the brutal oppression of the African Americans to disprove the U.S. State Departments propaganda about American democracy. The colored colonial world was well aware of each lynching and act of oppression. New economic, political and social factors made what was impossible in 1940 possible in 1955. The heroic Ms. Parks was one of the flames that ignited the powder keg.
The goals of the Civil Rights movement have basically been achieved in the legal sphere. However, those who were oppressed because they were Black and poor are now oppressed because they are poor and Black. The lower class gained very little from the movement. They are restless and demanding change.
Again new economic, political and social factors are coalescing to create the conditions for a new movement and for new leaders to step forth. Electronic production and communications has created a global economy and a global working class. The ongoing decline of economic bribery and living standards of the American white workers are creating conditions for working class unity. The polarization of wealth and poverty in every country is laying the foundation for a sharp downturn in the world economy. The possibility of a political crisis is plain to see. The factors to create a massive movement are falling into place. Again, as in 1955, vision and organization to achieve it are the subjective factors that need be added by the revolutionaries. The only fitting tribute to Ms. Rosa Parks is for those revolutionaries to step forward, unite around the demands of the new class of poor and form the movement for their liberation.
