If you’re worried about threats to liberal democracy in America, emanating primarily from Donald Trump but also from parts of the progressive left, a new memoir published by two veteran civil rights activists provides a refreshing reminder that a better path remains open.
Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain: The Extraordinary Story of Love, Civil Rights, and Labor Activism, by Norman and Velma Hill, two black civil rights leaders, provides a fascinating account of their years working closely with Martin Luther King Jr., A. Philip Randolph, and Bayard Rustin to make their country live up to its ideals. Norman and Velma (whom I came to know while writing a biography of labor leader Albert Shanker), were in the thick of many of the central battles for racial and economic justice in the mid-twentieth century.
They first met in 1960, fighting racial segregation in Chicago. In 1963, they helped Randolph and Rustin organize the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. As the Black Power movement began to gain salience in the mid-1960s, they shifted to work with organized labor. Norman took a job with Rustin at the A. Philip Randolph Institute to provide a bridge between trade unions and the black community. Velma worked for the United Federation of Teachers to organize mostly black and Hispanic teacher aides in New York City at a time when many black city residents were distrustful of the union.
Throughout, the Hills battled segregationists and union-busters on the right as well as forces of illiberalism and black separatism on the left. In a sense, then, they’ve written two books in one. The first is a familiar—though still deeply affecting—morality tale in which they combat the pure evil of white supremacy and largely prevail. The second story involves the internecine battles on the left with other advocates of black advancement. Like their mentors Randolph and Rustin, the Hills believed in several key principles that received pushback at the time: interracial coalition politics; a common economic agenda across racial lines; nonviolence in achieving social change; democratic norms at home and abroad; and an optimism about the possibilities of America.
