"If all you know about the modern civil rights movement comes from TV or one class in high school, it seems like it started with Brown vs. the Board of Education in 1954 and was mostly about desegregating schools, lunch counters, and water fountains.
In fact, its roots were in the Great Depression of the 1930s and then World War II in the 1940s. And the war powerfully demonstrated something that had only been theoretical before: that democracies can set government policies that create full employment.
This meant more for African-Americans than anyone. Blacks had always been locked out of decent work, with unemployment rates far higher than that of whites. But the war created the demand for so much labor that for the first time significant numbers of blacks could find good jobs and gain a small toehold of economic security. The question was what would happen when the war ended...
The most powerful, lasting impact of the Full Employment Act is that (together with the Federal Reserve Act of 1977) it made it explicit that Congress was giving the Fed a “dual mandate” of maintaining reasonable price stability and maximizing employment. The 0.1 percent had always preferred that the Fed focus solely on inflation, pushing it to raise interest rates and throw people out of work at any sign of rising prices, real or imagined."
Honestly, black activists have been fighting for the well being of all Americans since there have been black activists.
FB: "the Kennedy administration showed some openness to the civil rights part of that equation — but none at all to the full employment part. So two of the movement’s leaders, A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, drafted the “Freedom Budget for All Americans.” One of its central demands was “more effective public control of the Federal Reserve.” King called the Freedom Budget “essential if the Negro people are to make further social progress.”"
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