[Marxism] 20,000 march on Jena

[Greg McDonald]

While some people may want to dismiss the relevance and  impact of  
the '60's, it might be worthwhile to ponder what the situation in  
Jena would look like if the civil rights movement had not taken  
place. To begin with, three nooses under a tree would not be hanging  
in thin air; black bodies would be hanging from those nooses. The  
local black population would be cowering in fear, and no one anywhere  
would care, except for the readers of the Amsterdam news in NYC.

Instead, we have 20,000 people in the street, international press  
coverage, and the local gendarmes going out of their way to  
accommodate the protesters, while international celebs such as David  
Bowie donate money to help with the legal fees of the young black men  
still in jail.

BTW, To say that the civil rights movement does not count as an  
expression of the peace and justice movement of the 1960's is to beg  
immediate irrelevance. I say that as a teen of the 70's who remembers  
watching it all on the tube, from the assassinations of JFK, RFK,  
Martin and Malcom, to the  uprisings in the cities, the daily body  
counts from Vietnam and the integrated protests in the streets of our  
southern cities.

Greg