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FREEDOMWAYS
FOURTH QUARTER 1966

levels, the Negro trade union members can offer to the civil rights leadership a new insight and a new vigor which are sorely needed at this time to offset what is becoming popularly known as the "white backlash." The trade union movement by its very nature, and for its own survival, must ultimately come fully and forcefully into the civil rights movement. It must plunge into matters of racial justice and injustice with its vast economic and human resources. People at the top of the labor movement are beginning to understand that because the standard of living of Negroes is low due to low wages and unemployment, the safety and solidarity of the unions are threatened internally as well as by the power structure externally. Section 14-B of the Taft-Hartley Bill is just one example. Stronger "right to work laws" are likely to ensue if full and adequate employment, protected by unions and collective bargaining, is not available As we move more and more toward automation, it becomes more important to bring the unorganized into organized labor. To do this civil rights must become everyone's business. It should and must be Black and White Together--We Shall Overcome with a concomitant of Solidarity Forever as binding pledge for all of America's working masses. Obviously such a binding of economic working forces cutting across racial, ethnic and nationality lines on civil rights and civil liberty issues has fantastic political implications for the Negro.

In this kind of relationship he may be able to garner the kind of economic strength within his own community for social change and the kind of economic and political alliances outside the black community to give substance and strength to his internal demands for specific things such as decent housing, decent schools, good health care, adequate police and fire protection. Apart from the social value intrinsic in it, integrating as such would become less important because the reasons for which Negroes now push for integration would be eliminated. Most whites think Negroes want to integrate because of social reasons. This is not so. Negroes feeling powerless want to be where the power is. If they were in possession of their own power and could obtain the things such as good schools or recreation, the reasons to integrate would disappear for most Negroes.

The experience in Chicago this past summer indicates that the road to true and full integration is going to be a long and arduous one. White resistance is tightening at all levels. The two weapons which the Negro possesses to loosen those tightening reins are his own unrealized economic and political potential. The gaining of some form of economic security will bring on political independence. The

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