It�s
that time of year where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.�s
uplifting speech permeates the air. It�s a time when
killers of the dream are allowed to pontificate their
own version of �I Have a Dream.� It�s a time when
the drum majors for greed, racism and injustices are
paraded out to receive awards in the name and spirit
of Dr. King.
I
have attempted to lift up the brilliance and complexity
of Dr. King�s work and his enduring analysis of this
country�s three evils: racism, war and poverty.
Over four decades since his death, these three evils
are alive and well. Dreaming won�t rid us of them either.
Black
people are still being lynched in the 21st Century.
Billions of tax dollars are spent each year in military
aggression. One in six Americans now lives below the
poverty line. The unemployment rate for black people
has been doubled that of whites since 1972 so when white
unemployment dips, black folks are under water. Currently,
unemployment for African-Americans is the highest in
nearly 30 years. The twin towers of poverty and economic
injustice are remain indomitable .
The
King had many profound insights about life in the U.S. and
it has taken years to uncover his many speeches and
writings that expose the barriers to peace and prosperity
for all American citizens.
One
book that recently came to my attention is written by
Michael Honey, a professor of labor studies and American
history at Washington University in Tacoma.
While doing research at the King Center in Atlanta some
years ago, Honey discovered a folder of King�s speeches
to labor unions and workers� rights organizations. Most
had never been published and so Honey put several of
them together in his book, All
Labor Has Dignity (King Legacy). King rightfully
saw the labor movement as an indispensable ally of the
civil rights movement.
I
was particularly struck by a speech delivered to a group
of New York Teamsters in 1967. It was given in the middle
of King�s unrelenting work around workers� issues and
their connection to poverty. A few months later, King
and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
launched the Poor People�s Campaign. It is during this
period where he felt compelled to go to Memphis at
a crucial time of the sanitation workers� struggle.
Dr.
King challenged the Teamsters in his most eloquent but
penetrating words. He started off by acknowledging the
limited accomplishments of civil rights movements on
segregation:
What
Dr. King was saying was that the privileges of white
people in an inherently racist society must be scrutinized
in the quest for economic equity. White people marching
arm-in-arm with blacks for voting rights or to de-segregate
a lunch counter was a picnic compared to what it would
take to deconstruct an economic system that used race
and gender to exploit workers at the bottom. King believed
that labor unions had a unique role in this phase of
the struggle.
We
have been stuck in this phase for much too long. Dr.
King understood that it was a class war long before
the Occupy protests drew a line in the sand between
the 99 Percenters and the contemporary robber barons
who head up global finance capital. He understood the
need for wealth redistribution long before the Republicans
tried to make it a dirty word.
As
we celebrate Dr. King�s birthday, let justice-seeking
people declare that �cheap victories� of the past must
be the stepping stones to real equality now. This
is a fight for decent paying jobs that guarantee a deserving
quality of life for all citizens. It must be directly
connected to the struggle of whites to make the necessary
�monetary� and� psychological� sacrifices. Full civil
and human rights will not be bought at �bargain rates.�
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member, Jamala Rogers, is the leader
of the Organization
for Black Struggle in St. Louis and the Black Radical Congress
National Organizer. Additionally, she is an Alston-Bannerman
Fellow. She is the author of The Best of the Way I See It � A Chronicle of Struggle. Click
here to contact Ms. Rogers.
