Formal civil rights gains left economic conditions and police violence unaddressed

Evidence

Although the federal government passed historic civil rights legislation in 1964 and 1965, formally banning race discrimination in voting, employment, and public accommodations—including lunch counters and train stations, which had been sites of protracted nonviolent civil rights protest and struggle—economic conditions in many Black communities were dire and worsening. Many gains achieved through the civil rights movement seemed largely symbolic to Black people who were subject to pervasive police violence and trapped in segregated, impoverished ghettos that had been created by white racism and government action. King himself acknowledged this dilemma, wondering aloud shortly before his death, “What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?” — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 393

Categorization

• SHARE: King’s ‘What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a hamburger?’ is a line worth sending to anyone working on civil rights, labor history, or political economy.
• XREF: connects to: Civil rights victories secured legal gains that coexist with deepened material inequality — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 106; Rights of assembly were won through struggle but then contained by new police forces. — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 1327