.Compare sources 1 and 3. What does Rustin mean when he says that ending segregation in public accommoda- tions has not affected the “fundamental conditions” of African American life? How does King’s point in docu- ment 1 address such issues?
1. Martin Luther King Jr., “If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins” speech, 1962. King, speaking to a meeting of the nation’s trade union leaders, explained the economic objectives of the black freedom struggle. If we do not advance, the crushing burden of centuries of neglect and economic deprivation will destroy our will, our spirits and our hopes. In this way labor’s his- toric tradition of moving forward to create vital people as consumers and citizens has become our own tradition, and for the same reasons. This unity of purpose is not an historical coincidence. Negroes are almost entirely a working people. There are pitifully few Negro millionaires and few Negro employers. Our needs are identical with labor’s needs: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor’s demands and fight laws which curb labor. . . . The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor movement and the Negro freedom movement. Together we can be architects of democracy in a South now rapidly industrializing.3. Bayard Rustin, “From Protest to Politics,” Commentary, February 1965. . . . it would be hard to quarrel with the assertion that the elaborate legal structure of segregation and discrimi- nation, particularly in relation to public accommodations, has virtually collapsed. On the other hand, without making light of the human sacrifices involved in the direct-action tactics (sit-ins, freedom rides, and the rest) that were so instrumental to this achievement, we must recognize that in desegregating public accommodations, we affected institutions which are relatively peripheral both to the American socio-economic order and to the fundamental conditions of life of the Negro people. In a highly-industrialized, 20th-century civilization, we hit Jim Crow precisely where it was most anachronistic, dispensable, and vulnerable — in hotels, lunch counters, terminals, libraries, swimming pools, and the like. . . . At issue, after all, is not civil rights, strictly speaking, but social and economic conditions.Compare sources 1 and 3. What does Rustin mean when he says that ending segregation in public accommoda- tions has not affected the “fundamental conditions” of African American life? How does King’s point in docu- ment 1 address such issues?
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