This one talks about how it's the progressive movement behind Obama that has the real promise of change, not Obama himself, and that the movement must continue after November. http://www.progressive.org/mp_ransby040308 -- I had some trouble using that link today, so I also pasted the article below if you can't reach it there.
We haven't seen this many students actively engage in the political process in 40 years. From now through the fall, we need to focus on continuing to involve students in the Democratic Party; increasing political activism on campus and recruiting tons of students to volunteer for Democrats. As students, we can have a huge impact helping take back the White House and electing more Democratic members of Congress from Illinois.
But as the Hayden article and Ransby note, the real work will begin after November. After a hard-fought campaign, most volunteers will be exhausted. In late November and December student leaders need to plan for 2009 while letting most activists rest. Starting in January 2009 there needs to be a huge wave of national campus activism on tons of progressive issues.
Student Democrats and progressive student activists as a whole talk a lot about how to build a national progressive student movement. After Hurricane Katrina, people looked to the mishandling of the rebuilding efforts as something that would finally wake people up and get them involved. People said the same thing about the War in Iraq, and about the Jena 6. Where progressive leaders failed to capitalize on those issues, Obama has succeeded -- over a million people have donated to his campaign and tens of thousands are volunteering. Regardless of whether you support Obama or Hillary, or what you see as the reason for this phenomena, this is a golden opportunity for progressives and students to really create a huge wave of activism that will reengage students across the country in politics and help bring about significant social change.
Reflections on King, Candidates and Movements
By Barbara Ransby, April 3, 2008
<http://www.progressive.org/mp
On the 40th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev.
Martin Luther King Jr., we would do well to remember an
observation by the civil-rights organizer Ella Baker:
"Martin didn't make the movement, the movement made
Martin."
The same can be said of both Sens. Barack Obama and
Hillary Clinton. Veteran organizers from around the
country have lent their experience, wisdom and passion
to both of these campaigns, and a history of struggle
for civil rights and women's rights has catapulted them
forward.
Interestingly enough, both candidates lay claim to the
mantle of the civil-rights movement.
Clinton, the admitted Goldwater girl, went to Selma and
recalled the impact of hearing King speak in 1963 in
Chicago as a transformative moment.
In January, on Martin Luther King Day, she also stood in
the pulpit of Ebenezer Baptist Church and told her
audience that it was she who was the daughter and
beneficiary of the movement's victories. She offered her
own telling analysis of what she viewed as the linchpin
of victory for the civil-rights movement: It was having
a president willing to put into law the demands of a
mass movement led by King.
Obama laid claim to the inheritance of the civil-rights
movement by deeming the freedom fighters of the 1960s as
the "Moses Generation" that led black people out of
slavery. That makes Obama and his peers the "Joshua
Generation."
At one debate, the candidates were asked why Martin
Luther King would endorse them. Obama's answer was also
telling and quite true.
"I don't think Dr. King would endorse any of us," Obama
said. "I think what he would call upon the American
people to do is to hold us accountable." And he added:
"I believe change does not happen from the top down. It
happens from the bottom up. Dr. King understood that."
We forget that lesson at our peril.
Many Americans are so hungry for an end to the
horrendous Bush administration that like a love-starved
person they view their new prospect through rose-colored
glasses.
The lesson from King's life is that King was not the
answer. As Obama often says in his speeches, "We are the
leaders we have been waiting for." Nothing could be more
to the point.
Barack Obama won't save us.
Hillary Clinton won't save us.
Through our own determined efforts, we have to save
ourselves.
That process will continue well beyond November 2008 no
matter who is in the White House come January.
Barbara Ransby is an associate professor in the
department of African American Studies and History at
the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is the author
of the award-winning biography, "Ella Baker and the
Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision."
She can be reached at pmproj@progressive.org.
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