A Freedom Budget for All Americans: Recapturing the Promise of the Civil Rights Movement in the Struggle for Economic Justice Today by Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates (review)

A little known document from the mid-1960s provided the labour-left with a blueprint for realizing the most radical promises of the civil rights movement. Reflecting the ideas of its socialist authors, the “Freedom Budget for All Americans” promised the elimination of poverty by ending unemployment and providing increased access to education, housing, and healthcare. Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates trace the long history of the “Freedom Budget” and argue for its continuing relevance in an era of austerity politics, growing inequality, and rising social unrest.

Activists and scholars, many of whom had worked together to organize the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, developed the Freedom Budget, which called for $180 billion in federal spending over ten years and went far beyond Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society programs in addressing the root causes of poverty. Following the passage of the landmark civil rights bills of the mid-1960s, supporters of the “Freedom Budget” viewed it as a logical move in to the realm of economic justice. Martin Luther King, Jr., the budget’s highest-profile advocate, heralded it as “a kind of Marshall Plan for the disadvantaged.” (92)

The budget was a collaborative project, but Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters President A. Philip Randolph and his close associate Bayard Rustin spearheaded the work. The great strength of the 84-page “Freedom Budget” was that it called for a radical reordering of the nation’s priorities based on realistic budget projections. Its great weakness was that it was a non-starter politically. The budget gained little traction due to the increasingly conservative political climate and a preoccupation – among politicians and left-activists alike – with Vietnam that pushed domestic issues to the margins. It enjoyed a slight revival during the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers strike and the Poor People’s Campaign, but it died shortly thereafter. Rustin, Randolph, and their acolytes share some of the blame for the budget’s political failure, according to Le Blanc and Yates. In the mid-1960s, this small but influential group of socialists sought to curry favour with leaders of the afl-cio and liberals within the Democratic Party. Rustin urged radical activists to shift their focus from protest to politics in order to effect change from within liberal institutions. This shift, however, undermined the budget proponents’ ability to launch the sort of grassroots movement that was necessary to its success. Even had it enjoyed a popular base of support, however, Le Blanc and Yates are guarded about its chance of success. “Perhaps its only hope was to be associated with the kind of radical and radicalizing struggle that King was waging at the end of his life,” they conclude. “In such a context, its defeat might have provided, as did King’s defeat, inspiration for future struggles around an undefiled vision.” (175)

What might be salvaged of an obscure left-wing budget proposal from the 1960s? Yates and Le Blanc believe quite a bit. They acknowledge that the political challenges are even more daunting than they were in the 1960s, an era of glorious hope and possibility by comparison. But they argue that a new “Freedom Budget” is even more urgent today than it was fifty years ago. By most key indicators, the conditions for the poor and working class have worsened and economic disparities are growing. A new budget is still possible, they suggest, though it would require a political willingness coupled with deep cuts in military spending and a stronger commitment to progressive taxation. The authors decline to detail a political strategy for moving such a proposal, but drawing on the history of the “Freedom Budget” they provide suggestions for activists who might endeavor the campaign. They urge activists to frame their work within the context...