This past weekend President Obama spoke at the dedication of the Martin Luther King memorial on the National Mall. King will stand rightfully with other Americans who made this nation great.
But as we remember Dr. King, have we forgotten a vital part of his dream?
I’ll be the first to admit that I owe my success to women and men like King who made sure I could sit at the front of the classroom instead of at the back of the bus.
But we owe it to King not to make his legacy one dimensional. Yes, King was chief champion of civil rights, but just as importantly, he was a warrior for economic justice. His march on Washington D.C. was actually called the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
Unfortunately, King would likely not recognize the America of today.
The richest 1 percent of us now take home 24 percent of the nation’s income and the 400 wealthiest Americans control more wealth than the bottom 200 million Americans combined.
According to the United Nations, the US worker is the most productive on the planet but has yet to see the fruits of his labor. Average wages, adjusted for inflation, have flatlined for 30 years, while CEO pay has exploded by nearly 300%.
Warren Buffett, one of the richest men in the world, famously quoted, “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
While some worry about where to park their million dollar yachts, 1 in 7 Americans struggles to put food on the table. Poverty in America has reached an all time high and the CDC reports that nearly 50 million Americans are without health insurance.
Congress-approved Bush tax cuts for billionaires and millionaires now stretch into their tenth year, while failing to invest significantly in education, social programs, and infrastructure.
We can realistically argue that Dr. King’s dream of economic justice has morphed into a sadistic nightmare. There’s no doubt that if King were alive today he might feel right at home with the Occupy Wall Street protestors.
As we honor King with a memorial in the nation’s capital, we must remember that to truly honor the man we must continue to fight for his dream””all of it.
BMWK, sound off. Do you think we too often acknowledge King’s battle for civil rights while overlooking his struggle for economic justice?
