The Revolution Will Not Be Tivo'ed

Has black history month ever seemed so apt as it seems now? I admit, I've never been a big fan of the observance--too niche, too feel-good, too much of an excuse to ignore racial struggle the other eleven months of the year. But this year it has a new urgency, a new reason to be re-examined. Sure, the election of Obama to the White House helps. But so do the Bush years. In even the most cursory retrospective afforded by the early months of 2009, it's clear that a whole host of civil rights central to the social movements of the 60s and to the idea of democracy itself have been battered and bruised in shockingly casual ways.

But we haven't noticed. No wonder: The compelling visuals of the civil rights and equal rights battles--street protests, showdowns with police--haven't been replaced by anything comparable. How ironic that in the most visually sophisticated age in history, an age in which the average citizen stands ready to record events at a moment's notice on his cell phone, there's not much to see.

How fortunate, then, that the Rev. Eric Lee of the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference stood up and reminded a crowd of high-school students this week what we all need to remember: civil rights issues are alive and well, even if they can't exactly be shown on YouTube. In the library of Hamilton High School in west L.A., Lee stalked the floor with a microphone and broke down the meaning and relevancy of civil rights to the Z generation, though not by lecturing about the black struggles of the 60s--way ancient history to this crowd. Instead, he led a discussion about the far more current struggle of gay rights, specifically the gay right to marry. All 80 kids in the room knew about Proposition 8 and its passage last fall in California (and the legal challenges to that passage that are still ongoing), but what they didn't know was how that fight connects directly to fights against discrimination waged in the 60s and long before then. In other words, black history is but one piece--albeit a big piece--of the history of justice for all that extends to many battles, a history that's never-ending.

The students seemed mildly shocked that the big-tent message was coming from Lee, an ordained minister who admitted that most of his fellow black clergy thought he was crazy for coming out against Prop 8. They argued that gay marriage wasn't a civil right, that it had no place in the pantheon of causes that blacks have fought for, that it wasn't something that black folks should be identified with at all. Lee said that was just the point--civil rights belong to everybody, not just to black people. He said the whole problem with Prop 8--and with too many political issues, for that matter--is that it was framed as a religious and moral issue rather than a legal or civil one. He pointed out that as a minister, he can't marry people unless they produce a marriage license first--proof that the so-called sanctity of marriage is the province of the state, not of the church or any other religious institution.

But in the end, Lee admitted, it's not simply about what's legal. It's about what's right. Jim Lawson, a King ally and mentor and a legendary figure of the 60s, is one local black reverend who applauded Lee for his stance on gay marriage. "Martin," he told him, "would have been on the right side of this one."

Photo: AFP/Getty Images