Guest Editorial

“True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar….it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Today’s TV commentaries about economic justice may seem new to many of the younger generation, but in his December 1964 speech “Accepting the New York City Medallion [the highest civilian award given by New York City], Martin Luther King, Jr., addressed the issue:

“In both Norway and Sweden, whose economies are literally dwarfed by the size of our affluence and the extent of our technology, they have no unemployment and no slums: their men and women and children have long enjoyed free medical care and quality education. This contrast to the limited, halting steps taken by our rich nation, deeply troubled me – particularly when more than 40 million Americans, white and Negro, now live in grinding poverty; when we today suffer the existence of a virtual standing army of 7 million unemployed; when we permit slums and ghettos to blight our cities and country-side; when even limited medic[al]-care and training programs die in the legislative bills.

“The conclusion became inescapable that there is a deep – but unnecessary – economic malady in our country which must be healed here and now. The Pope’s message and what I learned from these small countries has intensified my determination to press even more vigorously for a broad alliance of all forces – Negro and white – dedicated to the achievement of economic justice.”

King’s assassination in 1968 stopped immediately the momentum toward an Economic Bill of Rights. But almost 50 years later, not much has changed.

According to the Census Bureau, we have 46.5 million Americans living below or near the government-defined poverty line (about one in seven people). Our standing army of unemployed is 20.7 million people, including those who quit looking for work (Bureau of Labor Statistics). The Economic Policy Institute notes that unemployed workers outnumber public-sector job openings 3 to 1, thus making it impossible for over 13 million Americans to even find work in today‘s job market. According to the EPI, this is a broad-based lack of business demand for workers, not a lack of workers having the skills needed.

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., worked tirelessly for equality in political and economic power – voting rights and rights to a living wage. In his speech to the United Packinghouse Workers Union of America in Minneapolis in May of 1962, Dr. King commented on two issues that still confront us today:

“To take hold of these problems [housing, job and retirement security, health, wages], we who are the economically maimed and injured must stand together and act together in order to compel government action swiftly and extensively. The federal government meets natural disaster promptly. It boldy organizes for national defense. It must deal with the impending economic hurricane with similar decisiveness. For so many of us the same life or death questions are involved.

‘Everything but the squeal of the pig’ was converted into a socially useful product. It is fair to say that if this could be done by one industry with pigs, all of society should, it seems, be capable of progress without wasting any people!

Dr. King suggested that poverty was a major cause of the social problems in the United States, but here we are today – repeating history by having done so little or nothing for even more Americans living in poverty.

It is time we pick up where Dr. King left off on social and economic issues and start making progress. We have it within us as individuals and as a nation to do that. Many have the desire to improve the lives of all Americans and, in doing so, not waste a single individual.

How do we want to be remembered by our loved ones, by our country, by history? Dr. King’s desire for his remembrance is so clearly stated here that we should be able to join him and also say, I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. And I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

What better legacy could any of us leave than that of a life committed to helping others.