While the Civil Rights Movement is remembered for efforts to end segregation and secure the rights of African Americans, the larger economic vision that animated much of the movement is often overlooked today. That vision sought economic justice for every person in the United States, regardless of race. It favored production for social use instead of profit; social ownership; and democratic control over major economic decisions. The document that best captured this vision was the Freedom Budget for All Americans: Budgeting Our Resources, 1966-1975, To Achieve Freedom from Want published by the A. Philip Randolph Institute and endorsed by a virtual 'who's who' of U.S. left liberalism and radicalism. Now, two of today's leading socialist thinkers return to the Freedom Budget and its program for economic justice. Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates explain the origins of the Freedom Budget, how it sought to achieve "freedom from want" for all people, and how it might be reimagined for our current moment. Combining historical perspective with clear-sighted economic proposals, the authors make a concrete case for reviving the spirit of the Civil Rights Movement and building the society of economic security and democratic control envisioned by the movement's leaders--a struggle that continues to this day.
Paul Le Blanc is Professor of History at La Roche College and the author of many titles, including From Marx to Gramsci and Marx, Lenin and the Revolutionary Experience. Michael D. Yates is Associate Editor of Monthly Review and the author of Why Unions Matter and The ABCs of the Economic Crisis (with Fred Magdoff).
"A dazzling gem of socialist scholarship! Le Blanc and Yates conjoin meticulous research with sensitive analysis to deliver a superb political narrative graphically recreating a significant slice of lost history."--Alan Wald, H. Chandler Davis Collegiate Professor, University of Michigan "An excellent and long overdue chronicle of the Freedom Budget. Their attention to new and striking details results in a wondrous story told with compassion and clarity."--Angela D. Dillard, author of Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit "Exciting and unique, especially for students, activists, and scholars. An important challenge to the neoliberal agenda."--Immanuel Ness, Editor, WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society "In this book, Paul Le Blanc and Michael D. Yates rescue the & Freedom Budget proposed by civil rights leaders in the 1960s from an unjustified historical obscurity. And they rightly see in the Freedom Budget a model of the kind of program that could unite American progressives and help restore national prosperity and democracy in the age of Occupy"--Maurice Isserman, author of The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington "Shows that the political development and leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, A. Philip Randolph, and others, were inextricably bound up with socialist organizations and ideas. These heroes of American history were fighting for much more than & civil rightsthey were fighting to fundamentally change American social and economic life."--Brian Jones, educator, actor, and activist
