MLK on Poverty in the U.S.

[roxiejules]

Run time: 04:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt2bDFheuFY   Posted on YouTube: January 13, 2011 By YouTube Member: bbeaudreau Views on YouTube: 194   Posted on DU: April 05, 2011 By DU Member: roxiejules Views on DU: 244

 
In one of his speeches in the early 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaks of poverty in America. Photos of Dr. King during the Civil Rights movement are blended with still and video images of hunger and poverty in present day Rhode Island against the backdrop of Dr. King's speech.

After passage of civil rights acts in 1964 and 1965, King began challenging the nation's fundamental priorities. He maintained that civil rights laws were empty without "human rights" — including economic rights. For people too poor to eat at a restaurant or afford a decent home, King said, anti-discrimination laws were hollow.

He decried the huge income gaps between rich and poor, and called for "radical changes in the structure of our society" to redistribute wealth and power.

"True compassion," King declared, "is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring."

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2269

[Charleston Chew]

1. Dr.Martin Luther King Jr. Supports Memphis Workers

Dr. King and the 1968 AFSCME Memphis Sanitation Strike
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”


On April 3, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. traveled to Memphis to support AFSCME sanitation workers. That evening, he delivered his famous “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech to a packed room of supporters. The next day, he was assassinated.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x569963

[OHdem10]

2. Seems I remember Dr. King was planning to create a Poor People

Party, blending the races and fighting to end poverty
among blacks and whites. Why is this one of my strongest
memories???

[roxiejules]

3. I believe it was the Poor People's Campaign

http://www.poorpeoplescampaignppc.org/HISTORY.html


In November 27, 1967,Dr Martin Luther King JR. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference organized a Poor People's Campaign to address issues of economic justice and housing for the poor in the United States, aiming itself at rebuilding America's cities. The Poor People's Campaign did not focus on just poor black people but addressed all poor people.Martin Luther King jr. labeled the Poor People's Campaign the "second phase," of the civil rights struggle - setting goals such as gathering activists to lobby Congress for an "Economic Bill of Rights," Dr. King also saw a crying need to confront a Congress that had demonstrated its "hostility to the poor " - appropriating "military funds with alacrity and generosity," but providing "poverty funds with miserliness."


Under the "economic bill of rights" the Poor People's Campaign asked for the federal government to prioritize helping the poor with an antipoverty package that included housing and a guaranteed annual income for all Americans.