PRAIRIE VIEW, Texas (January 18, 2020) – “…all life is interrelated…somehow we’re caught in an inescapable network of mutuality tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”
This month, we celebrate the 91st birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He said the above words in 1962 at Oakwood College just months before his Albany, Georgia arrest. Born Michael King on January 15, 1929—on the eve of The Great Depression—Dr. King would go on to become a tremendous change-agent whose drum major instincts would propel him to unimaginable heights.
Dr. King was a son, brother, husband, father, minister, comrade, and leader. The common perception of him is often an image of “The Dreamer” due to his famous August 1963 speech. Yet, he was also a progressive keenly aware of the hundreds of years of exploitation most “New World” Africans had experienced. His audiences often heard the details of these horrors, which included Africans kidnapped as an act of war and brought to foreign and distant lands in chains. It was the largest forced migration the world has ever known. Over 100 million Africans perished between 1441 and 1888. Dr. King demanded billions in reparations for not only black folks, but for all oppressed people.
In his 1963 book, Why We Can’t Wait, Dr. King argued that the U.S. owed social and economic compensation to Black America for the wrongs of the holocaust of enslavement, sharecropping, debt peonage, convict lease system, political exclusion, Jane and Jim Crow (racial apartheid), violence, terrorism, and lynch mobs. Along with reparations, Dr. King also proposed a national Basic Income Guarantee (BIG) to address the crippling effects of poverty. In 1967, he said, “I am now convinced that the simplest solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a new widely discussed measure: the guarantee income. A host of psychological changes inevitably will result from widespread economic security.” By 1969, the Presidential Commission, National Council of Churches, Kerner Commission, California Democratic Council, Republican Ripon Society, and the 1972 Democratic Party Platform all endorsed this BIG idea. Dr. King vowed to make this the next goal of the Freedom Struggle.
Dr. King viewed poverty as a civil rights issue, along with access to the vote. Therefore, in celebrating Dr. King, we also honor thousands of unsung sheroes and heroes who were committed to the civil rights movement. Brenda Cherry, Ulysses Simpson Tate, Lu Lu B. White, Antonio Maceo Smith, Juanita Craft, and Lawrence A. Nixon also gave voice to the movement here in Texas through peace and non-violence. Dr. King used these two methods to address social justice, political access, and economic inequality. Some could argue with considerable merit that racial and economic inequality are the most pressing social issues of our time. In the last decade, we have seen the economic impact of the Great Recession and a recovery that has bypassed millions of black households. If Dr. King were alive today, he would speak to these matters, which include economic turmoil punctuated by civil unrest throughout the country in the wake of a series of high-profile killings at the hands of police. The tragic deaths of Eric Garner in Staten Island; Cleveland’s 12-year-old Tamir Rice; 16 shots into Chicago’s Laquan McDonald; Walter Scott’s five shots in the back in North Charleston; Sandra Bland in Prairie View; Atatiana Koquice Jefferson in Fort Worth, and so many others all spell disaster for police accountability and transparency, use of force guidelines, and community relations. Technology has exposed the obvious: over-reach and abuse of power by a police state.
These senseless and violent murders have not only given rise to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement, but they have also sharpened the nation’s focus on the inequities and structural barriers facing African Americans. The growing wealth divide is no accident. It is the result of public policy designed to widen the economic rift between blacks and whites. In the absence of significant reforms, the racial wealth divide—and overall wealth inequality—are on track to become even wider in the future. Over the past 30 years, the average wealth of white families has grown by 84-percent—three-times the rate of growth for black families. If this pace continues, it will take 228 years for black family wealth to amass the same amount of wealth white families enjoy today. Thus, BLM and other civil rights organizations are still needed to protest government legislation that exacerbates, rather than address these pressing issues.
Lastly, the King Holiday should be a call to action to remain diligent in the fight for human rights and dignity. Blacks are 13-percent of the nation’s population. Yet, we are nearly 40-percent of the prison population, have an almost 50-percent high-school drop-out rate, and are disproportionately impacted by predatory lending from unscrupulous banks such as Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Dr. King’s significance to the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements cannot be overstated. He embodies the spirit of civic commitment. His life was a testament to his unwavering faith to the nation, the law, and the marginalized—particularly the black community. As Civil Rights foot-soldiers proclaim, “The Struggle Continues!” Dr. King gave his life; thus, we should be willing to get involved within our local communities to help solve some of today’s ills.
When we delve into Dr. King’s journey, what we see is a story of hope, courage, and resistance. Prominent scholar-activist Dr. Mary Francis Berry reminds us, “The time when you need to do something is when no one else is willing to do it, when people are saying it can’t be done.” PV Panthers: Let’s engage in intellectualism, political engagement, and community uplift so we, too, can make a contribution to the forward progression of African peoples. ¡Aché!
Will Guzmán (@ebeyiye) is a professor of history at Prairie View A&M University. His next book will be on the life of civil rights attorney Raymond A. Brown, and he is also editing Maceo Dailey’s biography of Houston-born Emmett J. Scott—chief of staff to Booker T. Washington.