Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man

by Emmanuel Acho

The 1963 March on Washington might be most famous for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech, but it’s also notable because the march had a specific agenda. That agenda—or list of demands, if you will—was read by activist Bayard Rustin, the deputy director of the march, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I list them all below so you can read them and ask yourself which of them, after fifty-seven years, have been met for black people: 1. Comprehensive and effective civil rights legislation from the present Congress—without compromise or filibuster—to guarantee all Americans: Access to all public accommodations, Decent housing, Adequate and integrated education, The right to vote. 2. Withholding of Federal funds from all programs in which discrimination exists. 3. Desegregation of all school districts in 1963. 4. Enforcement of the Fourteenth Amendment—reducing Congressional representation of states where citizens are disfranchised. 5. new Executive Order banning discrimination in all housing supported by federal funds. 6. Authority for the Attorney General to institute injunctive suits when any Constitutional right is violated. 7. A massive federal program to train and place all unemployed workers—Negro and white—on meaningful and dignified jobs at decent wages. 8. A national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living. (Government surveys show that anything less than $2.00 an hour fails to do this.) 9. A broadened Fair Labor...