What is the
Legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
by Bill Breitsprecher
While most Americans think of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. as a civil rights leader, to those that he dedicated
his life to empowering, he was much more: theologian,
philosopher, orator, writer/author, advocate of worldwide
social justice, prophet of his people, and an American hero.
His prominence in the public eye began in 1955 when he led
the Montgomery Improvement Association's 381 day boycott of
the Montgomery, Alabama, bus system after African American
seamstress Mrs. Rosa Parks "broke" the law by not giving up
her seat to a white person on a bus.
A careful review of Dr. King's life clearly shows that
economic justice underlies his work. It was not until he began
directly talking about and working on these issues, organizing
the Poor People's Campaign, that he was assassinated. This
essentially ended a reasonable dialog on poverty in America.
The "guns and butter" and "war on poverty" rhetoric that
followed wholly failed and perhaps even misled this nation.
Dr. King understood the real issues and offered a real
solution which he described in his last Sunday morning sermon
as follows: There is nothing new about poverty. What
is new is that we now have the techniques and the resources to
get rid of poverty. The real question is whether we have the
will. In a few weeks some of us are coming to
Washington to see if the will is still alive or if it is alive
in this nation. We are coming to Washington in a Poor People's
Campaign. Yes, we are going to bring the tired, the poor, the
huddled masses.
We are going to bring those who have known long years of
hurt and neglect. We are going to bring those who have come to
feel that life is a long and desolate corridor with no exit
signs. We are going to bring children and adults and old
people, people who have never seen a doctor or a dentist in
their lives. We are not coming to engage in any
histrionic gesture. We are not coming to tear up Washington.
We are coming to demand that the government address itself to
the problem of poverty. We read one day, "We hold these truths
to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of
Happiness." But if a man doesn't have a job or an income, he
has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the
pursuit of happiness. He merely exists. We are coming
to ask America to be true to the huge promissory note that it
signed years ago. And we are coming to engage in dramatic
nonviolent action, to call attention to the gulf between
promise and fulfillment; to make the invisible visible.
Why do we do it this way? We do it this way because it is
our experience that the nation doesn't move around questions
of genuine equality for the poor and for black people until it
is confronted massively, dramatically in terms of direct
action. The demands of the Poor People's Campaign
included a $30 billion annual appropriation for a
comprehensive anti-poverty effort, a full-employment act, a
guaranteed annual income, and construction funds for at least
500,000 units of low-cost housing per year. In Scott
Walker's "Open for Business" Wisconsin, we can see that the
inequities in our society are greater than ever. Shockingly,
those with the most continue to hijack the political debate
with demands for more.
Politicians proclaim a need for "austerity" and sacrifices
from those that have the least - people that carry the
heaviest burden of poverty and injustice. It is clear; the
demands of the Poor People's Campaign remain unmet while the
needs for a peaceful and just resolution grow. Today,
Wisconsin is "ground zero" of an economic attack on workers,
families, and children. It is impossible to go across the city
of Madison or our great state without seeing people gather and
exercise their rights to hold their elected servants
accountable. We do not work for Mr. Walker and his
cronies/backers. Mr. Walker should be working for us. This
year, it is more important than ever to reflect on the common
thread that ran through the work of Dr. King - economic
justice. While many now proclaim a need for solidarity, none
exists until we are willing to address injustices that were
ingrained in this nation's Constitution and never, to this
day, resolved. What would Dr. King say about the draconian
economic policies and assaults on basic freedoms that we are
witnessing in the Badger State? It is tragic that we will
never fully know - his life was cut short. He was gunned down
at exactly the moment when he was ready to speak about
economic justice for all. He had answers for the challenges we
face today. Want to know what Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. might have said about today's turbulent times? He
did speak to us directly on these matters. His voice may not
be with us, but his words will live on if we choose to carry
them.
Most of the media today, and virtually all politicians,
talk about the importance of the "middle class". It is true
that without an economy where people can live with dignity and
raise children in a reasonably enriched environment, we cannot
be a great nation. But the "war on the middle class" is really
about shoving people into poverty. Now more than ever, we
need a Poor People's Campaign that will pick up where Dr. King
left off. Real solidarity demands it and cannot exist without
it. It is sad that we do not appear to yet have a leader
that can fill Dr. King's shoes. Perhaps soon, one will emerge.
Fortunately, he left us a great deal more than his leadership
in resolving civil rights issues.
It is time to re-read his words, listen to video/audio
recordings, and ask ourselves, "What is Dr. King's lasting
legacy?" Let's work together to show the world that
Wisconsin understands Dr. King's legacy - he stood for
economic justice. As important as a dialog is about Dr. King's
legacy, even more so is finding leaders that will pick up the
causes and actions he died for. |
