Pfleger channeling Randolph's 1941 proposed march

Father Pfleger's proposed Dan Ryan march isn't the first mass protest designed to frighten America's rulers. The march is intended as a disrupting form of civil disobedience to prod, scare, shock the political establishment to address the poverty and hopelessness on the South and West Sides and its resulting violence. Sixty-seven years ago, A. Phillip Randolph, head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, threatened a hundred thousand person march on Washington, demanding jobs for blacks in the burgeoning defense industry. Full employment on America's march to war didn't include them as evidenced by the president of North American Aviation who didn't mince words: "While we are in complete sympathy with the Negro, it is against company policy to employ them as aircraft workers or mechanics ... regardless of their training.... There will be some jobs as janitors for Negroes." Ouch.

Randolph knew organizing, forming his railroad porters union in 1925, uplifting thousands of blacks into the middle class. FDR deflected Randolph''s demands in September, 1940, prompting Randolph's January, 1941 call for the first massive civil rights march in DC. 1941 was no 1963 as far as allowing such an event. FDR caved, issuing Executive Order 8802 on June 25, opening up defense plant jobs to black workers, skilled as well as menial, North American Aviation included. Though little spoken of today, the 1941 non march was one of the earliest thrusts toward black economic equality that inspired the future civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's.

Wouldn't it be fitting if Father Pfleger's proposed march also caused our governmental masters to actually begin the process of economic and spiritual uplift of America's poverty shame? Like FDR, there would be no shame for Governor Rauner and Mayor Emmanuel to cave when it allows the light of uplift and reform to shine in.