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of revolution Lynd describes. Yet he adds, "in the political spectrum
of
this
society, labor is as far Left as the masses go." Which masses?
What about the millions of the poor who might be willing to go much
farther if they were organized? Harrington says the two largest groups
of the poor and the deprived- the young and the old-are the "most
difficult to organize." But we know so little about the dynamics of
organizing the poor to organize themselves in the current situation.
Harrington may be right. But it is too soon for him or anyone else
to conclude that the future must necessarily mirror the past.
The new Left. has only begun to act as a catalyst among the
poor. And other ghetto groups, which have sprung up without outside
help, are also very new. A politicalized underclass has not yet emerged,
nor as Harrington says, can one "wish or exhort or romanticize it
into existence." But one
can
work toward that goal, and this is
precisely what more and more of the young are doing.
But what if the poor were to start to move? "Even a full mobili–
zation of all the impoverished would ... fall numerically short of a
majority," Harrington claims: the poor and deprived together total
no more than forty percent of the citizenry. But a numerical majority
is
hardly essential to create an effective thrust for basic change. Mter
all,
the other sixty percent, many of whom are in their own way
insular and apathetic, does not share a community of self-interest.
Harrington is right when he says that the Negro "cannot make
a revolution by himself." The Negro will have to ally himself with
the white workers, and with other groups. But because of the civil
rights movement there is now more potential for self-organization
among the black poor than among the white. And it is in the black
ghettos that most attempts at community organization by the new
Left and by the poor themselves are taking place.
As
more workers
come into community organization, intensive efforts will have to be
made in white ghettos too, like those made in Kentucky. And I agree
with Bayard Rustin's statement of a few years ago that more white
activists should ask themselves whether this course will be the most
effective role they can play in the movement beyond civil rights.
In any case,
if
larger and larger groups of the black poor do
organize themselves to acquire political and social power, they will
then
be able to enter into a coalition on an equal basis. They cannot
do that now, even if a real coalition existed. And one of the primary
