This has been a summer of great call and response. I will recall this as a time when civil-rights advocates and social-justice activists of today have been tried physically and our resolve tested. Our belief in liberties acquired by our forebears were both affirmed and challenged.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruling against part of the 1965 Voting Rights act was a betrayal of equality. Our response as heirs of the civil-rights movement was to do what we know to do best and take to streets to let our outrage be known.
Then the same Supreme Court delivered two compelling decisions that in effect provide room for marriage equality in our laws. In celebration we took to the streets to further articulate our joy and still state our concerns.
Then in Florida a jury of the peers of the killer of Trayvon Martin freed George Zimmerman. The call was to again take it to not only the streets but value our heritage, and further affirm our history at the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs & Justice.
As we conclude this session of street heat and marching we have yet one more bridge to cross, and that is the March on Springfield for Marriage Equality, Oct. 22 in Illinois. This is a march that will call for equality for same-gender couples in Illinois, but it will also nurture the flames of determination. This is not just a call of and for lesbians and gays. We as African-Americans and Black people seek no compromise of the equal protection and due process our country promises.
Civil unions are not enough because they are separate and unequal. Domestic partners are not enough because Jim Crow wasn't enough. Going back in any closet and live non-assuming lives isn't enough because de facto segregation and economic redlining were wrong and not enough. America has never tried and never practiced full affirmative action.
This March on Springfield is bigger than any "gay" agenda, this march calls on the State of Illinois to be true to its motto as a place of "State�Sovereignty, National Union." If we fail on this we cannot heal workers' rights and pension reform, we cannot deliver on education, we cannot stop violence, we cannot protect the environment nor support stabilization of our communities if we cannot embrace the compassion of equal protection and due process, because that is the core of human dignity.
When we go to Springfield Oct. 22 we are going not only that day but on the next days to come. We intend to call on the legislature to call Senate Bill 10 and give it the vote it deserves and that is legislative process. What we need to be planning for is how we keep this coalition together. With 500 or 5,000 people, what we need to assure is that the March on Springfield will be the place where the difference that happens will be seen. That we are not just a call for civil rights, but that we place ourselves as a part of social justice everywhere.
That means we need to eradicate racism in the LGBT community in services and opportunities. That means as we pool together to get to the march we are going to hold tight together after the march for parity of power and consideration of African-American same-gender-loving Black LGBT communities, institutions, services, public policy, economics and political empowerment. After the march we must willing to have uncomfortable conversations in welcoming places.
As African-Americans we are rooted where we are and no matter how well we flourish we are never foreign from our roots. When Black people live in the full benefit of our African-American truth, the path to community stability is less inhibited. We have got to make this march essential. What we lend to the march will be realized with interest that we can take back to enhance our communities.
This has been a summer of marches. Some days we marched it was so hot and others it seemed night came too early, but regardless of the circumstances we marched because we know we can't stand still. We can't behave as if nothing has happened and we can't be satisfied because this ain't freedom. Simon Nkoli, an openly gay leader of the South African Anti-Apartheid Movement and member of the African National Congress (ANC) once said, "I am oppressed because I am a Black man, and I am oppressed because I am gay. So when I fight for my freedom I must fight against both oppressions."
We must bring to scale the full capacity of freedom. Prioritizing going to Springfield is affirming that we are of the people that have made change. On Oct. 22, we will live out the words of Bayard Rustin to take action to prove our belief.
Marc Loveless is executive director of the Coalition for Justice and Respect (CJR) and the Coalition for Justice and Respect Foundation (CJRF).
