In 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. launched a new phase of the Civil Rights Movement focused on economic justice. While the Movement had won victories in desegregation and voting rights, King said it had done little to vanquish poverty. The rate of poverty in the U.S. in 1967 was roughly 12%, but for African Americans, it was more than double that. African Americans suffered much higher rates of unemployment, illiteracy and malnourishment than whites. As long as African Americans remained poor, they would never really be free, King declared. What was needed, he said, was "a radical redistribution of economic and political power."
King blamed poverty, and the shortcomings of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty undermined by the Vietnam War, for the 1967 summer of riots in poor black neighborhoods in cities like Watts, Detroit and Newark. After visiting Marks, MS to meet the nation's poorest, King announced the Poor People's Campaign December 4, 1967 to bring the poor to Washington, DC, to demand economic justice. Reaching out to Appalachian whites, Native Americans and Mexicans, among many other groups, King was intent on bringing a diverse movement to Washington to demonstrate that poverty was not simply a "Negro" problem. (1)
We still face alarming poverty in the U.S. where economic disparity is oppressive with the richest 1% owning half of the global wealth. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Children are hit the hardest.
(2) We face a moral dilemma, not just an economic one.
Leaders like Rev. Dr. William Barber of Moral Mondays are calling for a New Poor People's Campaign. Barber states, "This moment requires us to push into the national consciousness a deep moral analysis that is rooted in an agenda to combat systemic poverty and racism, war mongering, economic injustice, voter suppression, and other attacks on the most vulnerable." (3) Regardless of your economic status, what role will you play in the new movement?
