"We must develop huge demonstrations, because the world is used to big dramatic affairs. They think in terms of hundreds of thousands and millions and billions... Billions of dollars are appropriated at the twinkling of an eye. Nothing little counts"
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Randolph isn’t romanticizing the spectacle; he’s weaponizing it. The line lands like a cold-eyed diagnosis of how power actually recognizes a problem: not through moral appeal, not through polite petitions, but through scale that interrupts business as usual. “Huge demonstrations” reads less like a rallying cry than a strategic memo. He’s telling organizers to stop acting as if the system is wired for fairness and start acting as if it’s wired for force.
The subtext is contempt for incrementalism. “Nothing little counts” isn’t nihilism; it’s an indictment of a political economy that treats human need as negotiable until it becomes costly to ignore. Randolph points to a grotesque asymmetry: the state can move “billions of dollars” instantly when elites want it, yet suddenly discovers procedural patience when the demand is Black citizenship, jobs, dignity. The “twinkling of an eye” phrase matters because it exposes speed as a moral choice, not a logistical limit.
Context sharpens the intent. Randolph, the labor architect behind the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a key force behind the 1941 threatened March on Washington (which pressured FDR into banning defense-industry discrimination) and the 1963 March itself, understood mass protest as leverage in a society that fetishizes numbers. He’s also speaking to movement discipline: if the world “thinks in terms” of massive figures, then organizers must translate justice into the language power already speaks - disruption, visibility, and undeniable headcount. The real argument is that democracy, in practice, often requires theater to make its own promises legible.
The subtext is contempt for incrementalism. “Nothing little counts” isn’t nihilism; it’s an indictment of a political economy that treats human need as negotiable until it becomes costly to ignore. Randolph points to a grotesque asymmetry: the state can move “billions of dollars” instantly when elites want it, yet suddenly discovers procedural patience when the demand is Black citizenship, jobs, dignity. The “twinkling of an eye” phrase matters because it exposes speed as a moral choice, not a logistical limit.
Context sharpens the intent. Randolph, the labor architect behind the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and a key force behind the 1941 threatened March on Washington (which pressured FDR into banning defense-industry discrimination) and the 1963 March itself, understood mass protest as leverage in a society that fetishizes numbers. He’s also speaking to movement discipline: if the world “thinks in terms” of massive figures, then organizers must translate justice into the language power already speaks - disruption, visibility, and undeniable headcount. The real argument is that democracy, in practice, often requires theater to make its own promises legible.
Quote Details
| Topic | Justice |
|---|
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