John McWhorter argues that ensuring ex-offenders can find work today's civil rights movement:

It is a myth that no one will hire an ex-con.

He might conclude otherwise if he tries to get a job by using the wanted ads in a paper. What he needs, instead, are people who know where to send him — say, an organization specializing in connecting ex-offenders with work.

A couple of decades ago, the good fight was breaking down the walls of segregation. Today, the civil rights movement is more about helping the distracted and the misled of the poor, black people and how they can join the America that the civil rights pioneers created for us.

That is what organizations bringing ex-offenders into the mainstream are doing. They deserve the attention of anyone seriously interested in today's version of what used to be called the Struggle. Serious interest here means letting go of utopian rhetoric about a perfectly level socio-economic playing field and dealing with the world as it is.