This essay is part of our “People’s Guide to the Revolution” initiative for 2026. Visit our webpage for original content, events related to the 250th, and more.
By Michael Meltsner
Michael Meltsner, former first assistant counsel to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. His latest book is the civil rights era true crime novel, Mosaic: Who Paid for the Bullet.
The progress brought about by the Civil Rights Movement that peaked in the 1960s was long overdue and finally ended a wide variety of racial prohibitions. Despite its limitations, a slow pace and partial victories, there is no reversing the differences in the lives of Americans brought about by what is commonly called The Second Reconstruction. The changes cannot be measured by disappointing integration statistics for schools, housing or incarceration as significant as they may be. Increased social mobility and dashing notions of white supremacy, radically altered employment opportunities and dramatically different options for human relationships are part of an enduring legacy.
A year that we celebrate the 250th year of independence is an appropriate time to take stock of how the values enshrined in the Movement have fared. What we have seen sadly is both legal and policy actions that have basically stopped and in many cases reversed progress toward equal treatment that were at the heart of what we fought for in the sixties. The list is long. But a conservative Supreme Court began blocking civil rights initiatives long before the present group of Justices flipped the notion of anti-discrimination to stand as a protection of the white majority. The policies of the Trump Administration, attacking education, free expression and a range of programs of importance to the less well-off may not be labelled in overt racial terms but their impact is undeniable. And they take place in a society where wealth inequality has reached record dimensions. Indeed, one explanation for the rancid politics of today is that it came together as a reaction to the Movement’s progress.
Certainly, the opening of the Declaration of Independence remains inspiring. Despite Jefferson and many of its signers having no notion that Black and white people could coexist on an equal basis, we can build on its aspirational promise. There is, I believe, untapped energy that will in days to come bring light back to these dark days. Because the Movement has triumphed before we have an example that it can do so again.
Photo caption: Civil rights march on Washington, D.C., 1963. Courtesy of Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2003654393/.
