On Monday, we commemorate the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In late August 1963, 250,000 people traveled to Washington for what would prove to be a high point in the Civil Rights Movement. The march was organized around a central demand for redress of a crisis gripping the nation — the “twin evils” of racism and economic deprivation that, in the words of the organizers, were robbing all people of dignity, self-respect and freedom.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. implored all Americans to support a dream of racial and economic justice and appealed with urgency that “now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,” speaking of the need for civil rights protections, as well as the demand for a massive federal jobs program and a decent standard of living for all. King knew that the struggle for racial and economic justice would be long and tortuous. “1963 is not an end, but a beginning,” he predicted, and 60 years later, King’s hopes are far from realized.
Despite what some Supreme Court justices may think in terms of our nation’s progress toward racial justice and the need for continued affirmative efforts, 2023 is also not the end, but another point along the justice-seeking arc of the moral universe. Nationwide, the wealth gap between Black and white families is as large today as it was in the 1960s. In a recent study, Illinois ranked lowest of all states for Black wealth and employment. According to a 2023 study by Brown University, Chicago remains the most racially segregated city in America. Illinois ranks near the bottom of all states on equitable distribution of school funding. And as a country, we continue to disenfranchise millions of people in prison.
Today’s work for racial and economic justice must address these fundamental issues of inequity with strategies that target root causes and solutions that are informed and led by those most affected. We must re-imagine current systems, rebuilding them to envision the success of all, rather than the prosperity of some. At the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, we carry on the unfinished business for racial justice and economic opportunity by providing legal support to bold and dynamic coalition and community partners continuing the struggle.
In the education field, this modern-day fight takes shape through the Partnership for Equity and Education Rights Illinois (PEER IL) Coalition, a growing network of students, parents and community leaders leading the fight for fair and equitable school funding. Despite the state’s adoption of an evidence-based funding formula that explicitly recognizes the need for more resources to meet even minimum education standards, Illinois continues to underfund the formula by more than $7 billion. At this rate, many districts will not be fully funded until 2054 with Black and brown students disproportionately affected. Two more generations of Illinois students should not have to wait.
In the housing field, the story is, sadly, an old one: Entrenched racial and economic housing segregation in our city affects almost every indicator of quality of life and opportunity. The 30-year difference in life expectancy between Streeterville and Englewood is an unconscionable stain on this city and a reflection of decades of policies and practices by the city that maintain the massively unequal allocation of economic development resources and perpetuate racially discriminatory housing patterns: Consider the Chicago Housing Authority’s decision to lease valuable vacant land in the booming Near West Side community to a billionaire while thousands of families sit on CHA’s wait list. The community groups and coalitions challenging these decisions by the city are continuing to take up the call to action from 60 years ago to dismantle inequitable structures shaping our living spaces.
One of the “promises of democracy” of which King spoke was securing and protecting the voting rights of every American. In Illinois, that fight continues in the work of the Unlock Civics Coalition to reenfranchise nearly 30,000 individuals, 55% of whom are Black, who cannot vote due to their incarceration. Disenfranchisement by incarceration is a Jim Crow relic, implemented along with Black codes in the South during Reconstruction to strip Black Americans of their ability to engage in the democratic process. This relic persists even as evidence demonstrates that for the 95% of individuals who will eventually be released, becoming civically engaged increases the ability for reintegration, reduces recidivism and makes communities safer.
King understood 60 years ago that a society benefiting some at the expense of others would fall short of true freedom. He knew that shared humanity means that an individual’s freedom is inextricably bound to everyone’s ability to be free. That August day in 1963, Walter Reuther, president of the United Automobile Workers, called the civil rights movement a “struggle for every American to join in.”
We would be wise to embrace the wisdom of King and Reuther and recognize that the continued efforts in the decades ahead demand collective responsibility as Americans to work toward a greater good that can envision freedom and equal opportunity for all, not just some.
Aneel Chablani serves as chief counsel at Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights, an organization working to secure racial equity and economic opportunity for all for more than 50 years.
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