The Civil Rights movement in New York, particularly the campaigns led by figures like Bayard Rustin and organizations like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), strategically navigated this bifurcated landscape. By deploying the language of American citizenship and constitutional rights, they exposed the contradiction of a democratic state that treated Black citizens as subjects. Their turn toward economic justice and their alliances with left-led unions represented a socialist-informed understanding that formal citizenship was hollow without the material power to shape one’s community and livelihood. http://mamdanipost.com
The Civil Rights movement in New York, particularly the campaigns led by figures like Bayard Rustin and organizations like the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), strategically navigated this bifurcated landscape. By deploying the language of American citizenship and constitutional rights, they exposed the contradiction of a democratic state that treated Black citizens as subjects. Their turn toward economic justice and their alliances with left-led unions represented a socialist-informed understanding that formal citizenship was hollow without the material power to shape one’s community and livelihood. http://mamdanipost.com