SEPTEMBER 27 - OCTOBER 3, 1917 THE ICHIGAN CITIZEN
5
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In the cour of the last
century, the ruggle for social
justice in America has been
fourth out on many different
battlegrounds - the courts,
Congre s the schools and the
streets. We have rai d con-
iousne and we have rai d
hell; we have marched, sat in,
and sometimes laid down our
lives in the truggle. Along
the way we have won signifi­
cant victories, from the abolit­
ion of slavery, to the sweeping
reforms of the ew Deal, to
the historic Civil Rights Act
of 1964.
As these prote movements
ro up, they also wrought
Day-to-day struggle with poverty
By Wright Edelman
For a family, living in poverty
means a day-to-day struggle just
to survive. Each member of
the family must be resource­
ful, constantly finding ways to
tretch a tiny budget while
till trying (and often failing)
to meet his or her most basic
need. A poor family's painful
dilemma is vividly drawn in the
arch issue of Prepare, a recent
report published by the church­
sponsored arona! Impact Edu­
cation Fund in Washington, DC.
While the "Smith" family is
fictional, their problems are very
real.
rs. Smith, who is recently
divorced, has not received any
child pport from her ex­
hu and. She i eking steady
wor but has thus far been
unable to flnd only temporary
part-time jobs. The jobs,
along with recent change in
the hou hold, have meant that
the family could not receive
any help from Aid to Families
with Dependent Children
(AFDC. At the same time,
Bee v' mother h been unable
to get the training and other
help she needs to find table
employment that support her
family.
Eight-year-old Becky Smith
borrows her fro nd Martha's
boo becau her own family
cannot affort to buy any.
Bee y and her ister eep on
couches in small room, where
e ore h r clothes and
other belongings in a card­
board box,
Becky' grandmother does a
remar able job of keeping the
family going, To help bring in
more family income, she pro­
vide day care for neighbors.
But since over half of the
hou hold's income goe to rent
and utilit es, e i often f ced
with impo ible choice. When
the hot ater heater and furn ce
broke, for example, she wa
Marian
Wright
Edelman
CHILD
WATCH
afraid to complain for fear
they might lose their inexpen­
sive lodgings,
Poor families like the Smiths
are not members of the so­
called "underclass," a negative
label for the poor that the
Reagan Admini rat' on has so
often used as an excuse to cut
b ck on programs for those
in need, Like most poor fami­
lies, they are hardworking peo­
ple caught in a trap of poverty
from which few of us could
escape unassisted.
What the Smiths need is
not more chiding from the
President but sensible invest­
ment programs that can help
them in their struggle out of
poverty. This means providing
the health care and AFDC
help uch families need. It
means providing child care and
employment assistance to enable
heads of poor families to work,
and providing continuing sup­
port so as not to penalize them
for their efforts to overcome
poverty.
Congress has an opportunity
to assist their truggle this year
by providing education, train­
ing and employment programs
for some poor families, while
helping to address their crucial
need for child care, health care,
and other supportive services.
Our representatives also have
the chance to expand AFDC
to cover desperately poor two­
parent families often barred
from receiving such help. Let
your Representative and Sena­
tors know that you support
these investments to help poor
children and their families.
rite to Senator Carl Levin
or Sen. Don Riegle, Washing­
ton, DC 20510 and your Re­
presentative, Washington, DC
20515.
Marian Wright Edelman is
president of the Children's De­
fense Fund, a national voice
for children.
• •
WID,Dlng w
at?
THIS WAY for Black
Empowerment
Lenora Fulani
interest groups"
women, labor and gays - as
it moves further to the right
and closer to the Republicans,
It is for this reason that an
opportunity now exists in
American politics as never be­
fore to bring a movement for
social justice directly into a
confrontation with the structure
of the electoral sy em. e
call that movement for a new
political party belonging to the
disenfranchised the independent
political movement. And it is
potentially one of the most
explosive and far-reaching social
movements in American history.
The potential power of uch
a movement was demonstrated
in Je Jackson's extraordinary
Presidential campaign in 1984.
As they did in 1984, Demo­
cratic Party bos s will cer­
tainly seek next year to reject
Reverend Jackson and the Rain­
bow movement he has helped
to shape. Yet that movement,
the leading edge of. ocial
struggle in America today, can­
not be contained by the dis­
criminatory rules and bureau­
cratic racism of the D rno­
cratic Party. Indeed it has
another option - fighting to
build a Black-led, multi-racial
third party that can take up
the flagging struggle for social
justice in America. The pos­
sibility and the power exists,
as evidenced by a 1984 poll
taken of Blacks who had cast
their vote for Jesse J ack�n in
the Democratic primaries. A -
ed if they would have voted
for Jackson instead of the
Democratic Party nominee in
the ovember General Election,
57% responded YES.
On this 200th anniversary
of the framing of the Con­
stitution, the demand for cial
justice, for jobs, for peace is
synonymous with the demand
for representation of the un­
organized and unrepresented in a
new national Bl ck-led, multi­
racial electoral party.
Dr. Lena ra Fulani is an
Executive Board member of the
New A llianee Party, and
Director of Community Qinics
of the Institute for Social
Therapy and Research. She
can be contacted at the e\
Alliance Party, 2032 Fifth Ave­
nue, New York, NY 10035
(212) 996-6511.
profound changes in the Ameri­
can Constitution, including
amendments that gave Black
people equality under the law
and granted Black and white
women the right to vote. (The
original Constitution, of course,
has less to do with establishing
democracy than with granting
the Founding Fathers - all
slaveowners and among the
wealthiest men In colonial
America - ironcl d control
over society for themselves and
their white, and substantially
propertied, brethren.)
But as the Constitution came
to be modified, tho in power
sought ways to maintain 'their
control over the political pro­
ce , From the post-Civil War
period right up until today,
there has been a steady and
increasing monopolization of
American politics by Big Busi­
ne interests - the Demo­
crats and Republicans.
Those parties have rendered
the electoral arena in cce sible
to insurgent and gras roots for­
ces. In Congress and the state
legislatures, the complex maze
of laws and regulations have
made it virtually impossible for
a third party to even partici-
pate in, let alone ',any
national election. So over-
powering has been this monopo­
ly control over elections that
movements for cial justice -
lacking redress at the ballot
box - have been forced to go
el where-to the courts, the
streets, the welfare centers and
factories.
But times have I changed
dramatically in the past 20
years. Wor ning economic
conditions have rendered con­
cessions to the oppressed by
big business and its parties a
thing of the past. The Demo­
cratic Party now rejects "special