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2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forum1/15/2015 Eugene Robinson: MLK’s prophetic call for economic justice
Eugene Robinson: MLKs prophetic call for economic justice
By Eugene Robinson Opinion writer January 15, 2015
...As we celebrate Kings great achievement and sacrifice, it is wrong to round off the sharp edges of his legacy. He saw inequality as a fundamental and tragic flaw in this society, and he made clear in the weeks leading up to his assassination that economic issues were becoming the central focus of his advocacy.
Nearly five decades later, Kings words on the subject still ring true. On March 10, 1968, just weeks before his death, he spoke to a union group in New York about what he called the other America. He was preparing to launch a Poor Peoples Campaign whose premise was that issues of jobs and issues of justice were inextricably intertwined.
One America is flowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality, King said. That America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, freedom and human dignity for their spirits. . . . But as we assemble here tonight, Im sure that each of us is painfully aware of the fact that there is another America, and that other America has a daily ugliness about it that transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair.
Those who lived in the other America, King said, were plagued by inadequate, substandard and often dilapidated housing conditions, by substandard, inferior, quality-less schools, by having to choose between unemployment and low-wage jobs that didnt even pay enough to put food on the table.
The problem was structural, King said: This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor....
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eugene-robinson-mlks-call-for-economic-justice/2015/01/15/3599cb70-9cfe-11e4-96cc-e858eba91ced_story.html
By Eugene Robinson Opinion writer January 15, 2015
...As we celebrate Kings great achievement and sacrifice, it is wrong to round off the sharp edges of his legacy. He saw inequality as a fundamental and tragic flaw in this society, and he made clear in the weeks leading up to his assassination that economic issues were becoming the central focus of his advocacy.
Nearly five decades later, Kings words on the subject still ring true. On March 10, 1968, just weeks before his death, he spoke to a union group in New York about what he called the other America. He was preparing to launch a Poor Peoples Campaign whose premise was that issues of jobs and issues of justice were inextricably intertwined.
One America is flowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality, King said. That America is the habitat of millions of people who have food and material necessities for their bodies, culture and education for their minds, freedom and human dignity for their spirits. . . . But as we assemble here tonight, Im sure that each of us is painfully aware of the fact that there is another America, and that other America has a daily ugliness about it that transforms the buoyancy of hope into the fatigue of despair.
Those who lived in the other America, King said, were plagued by inadequate, substandard and often dilapidated housing conditions, by substandard, inferior, quality-less schools, by having to choose between unemployment and low-wage jobs that didnt even pay enough to put food on the table.
The problem was structural, King said: This country has socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor....
I have not seen this 48 minute speech yet (I need to wait until late night because of limited bandwidth with satellite), but I'm including it because of Mr. Robinson's reference.
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1/15/2015 Eugene Robinson: MLK’s prophetic call for economic justice (Original Post)
kristopher
Mar 2016
OP
Uncle Joe
(58,364 posts)1. Kicked and recommended.
Thanks for the thread, kristopher.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)3. You're welcome.
Punkingal
(9,522 posts)2. Dr. King was very anti-war as well.