Real change comes from steady, bipartisan progress
I’d like to share a story about frustration and finding a way through it.
On Dec. 1, 1955, Rosa Parks got on a bus in Montgomery, refused to give up her seat and galvanized the emerging civil rights movement.
But that was only the beginning.
It would be nine long years between Montgomery and President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, another year for the Voting Rights Act, and yet three more years for the Fair Housing Act.
Across my six decades in the civil rights movement, I have learned that change requires heroic people — like Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. — to put it all on the line. But it also requires persistence and practicality. It requires winning an imperfect victory today and coming back to try to win a little more tomorrow.
It’s a lesson too often lost on America’s political leaders today. But it certainly isn’t lost on the American people or on Floridians, who understand the path out of this frustrating political moment we’re in won’t come by aiming to steamroll the other side. It will come only when we treat one another with a full measure of dignity and respect and accept the give and take that comes with living in a democracy.
A few months ago, No Labels, where I serve as a national co-chair, polled thousands of Americans, and hundreds of Floridians, to see where and whether they could accept compromise solutions to our biggest problems.
They can.
For example, nearly 80% of Floridians support an immigration compromise that would increase border security while providing a pathway to citizenship for the “Dreamers,” those who were brought to the United States illegally as children.
More than 85% of Floridians want to see significantly expanded funding to ensure young children have the proper nutrition, and a similar number favor rigorous national education standards to arrest the scandalous decline in our children’s performance on reading and math tests.
Additionally, at least three quarters of Floridians approve of taking immediate steps to increase the production of American fossil fuels while investing more to expand clean energy in the long term.
This should provide a major opportunity for members of Congress to courageously cross the aisle to collaborate on solutions — and be rewarded for it. Cooperation is popular; 89% of Americans believe we could solve most problems in America if both major political parties tried to work together.
My experience in the civil rights movement gives me hope that our legislators will take that opportunity. The three landmark legislative accomplishments of that era — the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act — all passed with bipartisan support. I will never forget how Americans of diverse beliefs and backgrounds supported the cause.
Politics will always provoke frustration. It’s up to us to remember that it comes from a place of mutual concern, and channel it toward a stronger democracy.
Politics will always provoke frustration. It’s up to us to remember that it comes from a place of mutual concern, and channel it toward a stronger democracy.