536
lAYARD RUSTIN
Luther King with selling out in Selma, where he led thousands;
to
challenge Walter Reuther's ability to speak for hundreds of thousands
of auto workers.
It
is
perfectly legitimate for anyone to
be
critical
of established leaderships of any kind. (I am not without some per–
sonal experience on this score.) The danger arises when one assumes
that because his program is "objectively" in the interest of the masses,
he in fact has the allegiance of the masses, whose "so-called" leader–
ship is therefore discredited. From that assumption is a short leap
to
another: stubborn retention of their so-called leadership indicates the
stupidity or incompetence of the masses. Someone else must therefore
act for them. Need
it
be said that there
is
nothing new about
this
brand of "radicalism"?
II
It
will be said that I am setting up straw men, that the new
radicals-with their slogan of "participatory democracy"- are the last
people among whom a tendency (and a
tendency
is
all I am talking
about) toward elitism can
be
discerned.
But let us turn to a recent article by Staughton Lynd in
Libera–
tion
(June-July). In identifying Lynd, the magazine quotes Dow–
Jones's
National Observer
that he
is
"the foremost intellectual in the
radical left." Since the New Left is rightly incensed when its leaders
are designated by outsiders, it should be recalled that Lynd was
chosen to be chairman of the April 17 March on Washington
to
End the War in Vietnam. We may assume that this historic honor
would be conferred only on someone who, to a greater rather than
lesser extent, represented the thinking of the new radicals. I have many
strong objections to Lynd's controversial article, but I want for now to
focus on this excerpt from his final paragraph, describing the March:
Still more poignant was the perception-and I checked my
reaction with many many others who felt as I did-that as the
crowd moved down the Mall toward the seat of government,
its path delimited on each side by rows of chartered buses so
that there was nowhere to go but forward, toward the waiting
policemen, it seemed that the great mass of people would simply
flow on through and over the marble buildings, that our for–
ward movement was irresistibly strong, that had so:he been shot
or arrested nothing could have stopped that crowd from taking
possession of its government. Perhaps next time we should
keep going. ...
