On this day.

“It is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. And I need not remind you this is our plight as a people all over America.”
Martin Luther King in Memphis, March 18, 1968

I often wonder what happens the day after the annual celebration of the King Holiday. After the pomp and circumstance of the all of the events, I think about whether or not people are actually living the dream. Sure, we all want equality, but do we do anything to advance that ideal? And yes, we say that we want a fully integrated society, but recently released Census statistics are a sobering reminder of how separated we really are.


But the days after the King Holiday were different this year. About a month after Dr. King’s birthday, the spirit of protest and social change swept the state of Wisconsin. The protests were multiracial and relatively peaceful, but that’s not the King connection I want to make. The Wisconsin protests reflect a version of Dr. King that we don’t always hear about. We usually hear about the “I Have a Dream” King. However, Dr. King realized that the acquisition of civil rights was only one component of the equality for which he fought. During a five day retreat with a group of close aides in 1967, King began to plan an equality campaign that he hoped would bring about a radical change in the American way of life. This second phase of the civil rights movement was to known as the Poor People’s Campaign. Dr. King wanted to pressure Congress into passing an Economic Bill of Rights for the American poor. King believed that the Economic Bill of Rights would force Congress to work to decrease unemployment and increase affordable housing for the poor.

The speeches that King made during this era in his life were far more radical than the speeches we hear in sound bites during King celebrations and Black History Month. As a champion for the poor, King wanted to sound the alarm and make the connections between the evils of the war in Vietnam and the injustice of racism and poverty. His 1967 speech, “Where Do We Go From Here” outlines his social vision that linked economic inequality to race and culture. King believed that a fundamental reorganization America’s economic life would result in far-reaching benefits for communities of color: “Beyond these advantages, a host of positive psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security. The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the means to seek self-improvement. Personal conflicts among husbands, wives and children will diminish when the unjust measurement of human worth on the scale of dollars is eliminated.”

The whole of King’s life is important. However, the King of the Poor People’s Campaign is precisely what we need at this moment in American life. On this day, 43 years ago, Dr. King was killed during one of his man trips to Memphis. He was there to lend his support to striking sanitation workers and told them, “All labor has dignity … You are going beyond purely civil rights to questions of human rights.” Today, Americans across the county are taking part in demonstrations to remember King and the Poor People’s Campaign. The We Are One Campaign is attempting to breathe new life into the war on poverty and serve as a show of solidarity with workers in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states. In joining together on this day, Americans are continuing Dr. King’s legacy by rallying for affordable housing, the freedom to bargain, an affordable and equitable education and justice for all workers. So, if Dr. King’s birthday is a day of celebration, let the anniversary of his death be a day of action. We can work together to keep all of Dr. King’s dreams alive.