Martin Luther King Jr. and Poverty Related Obligations

BRIEF Bio of MLK MLK’s childhood (born Jan. 15, 1929) – ur/ ur/ Morehouse College ( ) Crozer Theological Seminary ( ) BU’s School of Theology Ph.D. ( ) Married Coretta Scott (June 18, 1953) Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama (1954) – Elected President of Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957) – Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta (co-paster with MLK Sr. 1960) – Nobel Peace Prize (1964) (youngest recipient at 35 yrs old)

Some key moments in King’s work Elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association which led Montgomery Bus Boycott that began with Rosa Parks’ refusal to give up her seat in Dec – House bombed several times. Birmingham Campaign and Letter from Birmingham Jail, 1963 Aug. 28, 1963 “I have a dream” speech Dec announced formation of Poor People’s Campaign King helped with Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Strike, then was assassinated on April 4, 1968 at the age of 39.

“The Negro and the Constitution” -MLK Jr. Apr. 30, 1944 (Jr. Yr. in H.S.) We cannot have an enlightened democracy with one great group living in ignorance. We cannot have a healthy nation with one tenth of the people ill- nourished, sick, harboring germs of disease which recognize no color lines--obey no Jim Crow laws. We cannot have a nation orderly and sound with one group so ground down and thwarted that it is almost forced into unsocial attitudes and crime. We cannot be truly Christian people so long as we flaunt the central teachings of Jesus: brotherly love and the Golden Rule. We cannot come to full prosperity with one great group so ill-delayed that it cannot buy goods.

King’s Ant-Vietnam War Efforts linked to his focus on Poverty As a critical New York Times Editorial makes clear, part of the reason King opposed the war was because he saw it as “slowing down the war on poverty” (NYTimes, Apr. 7, 1967).

Turns to focus on poverty Urged to do so by Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee’s Marian Wright (now Marian Wright Edelman, founder of Children’s Defense Fund) At a Nov retreat of Southern Christian Leadership Conference leaders, King decides to focus on poverty (over the objections and debate of some SCLC members).

Memphis Sanitation Strike -MLK Jr., March 18, 1968 About the sanitation strikers in Memphis: “you are commanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, or those who are not in the so-called big jobs.... One day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive. For the person who picks up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant as the physician... You are reminding, not only Memphis, but you are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.”

“Remaining awake through a great revolution” -MLK Jr., March 31, 1968 “Now there is another myth that still gets around: it is a kind of over reliance on the bootstrap philosophy.” “There is another thing closely related to racism that I would like to mention as another challenge. We are challenged to rid our nation and the world of poverty. Like a monstrous octopus, poverty spreads its nagging, prehensile tentacles into hamlets and villages all over our world. Two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry tonight. They are ill-housed; they are ill-nourished; they are shabbily clad.” “Yes, it will be a Poor People’s Campaign. This is the question facing America. Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation. America has not met its obligations and its responsibilities to the poor.”

Additional Resources Taylor Branch’s Trilogy MLK Jr. Institute at Stanford, kpp01.stanford.edu/ kpp01.stanford.edu/