May 9, 2018
Page 13
O PINION
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King’s ‘Poor People’s Campaign’ Revisited
Fighting back in
the war on the
poor
n iJMie D Zurinko
What’s the first
thing that you think
of when you think
of Martin Luther
King, Jr.? Perhaps
the “I have a dream
speech”?
That’s what we learn about
in school. But what was King’s
dream at the end of his life?
It was to build a massive move-
ment of all poor people, united
across lines of division, challeng-
ing conditions of poverty, system-
ic racism, and militarism — which
sucks our resources into endless
wars. Shortly before he was as-
sassinated, King and many allies
launched the first Poor People’s
Campaign.
In many ways, the first Poor
People’s Campaign marked a
departure from the broader civ-
il rights movement up until that
point.
For King, it was a transforma-
tion in his thinking from a focus on
the civil rights of African Ameri-
cans to the human rights shared by
by
all. It meant no longer addressing
racism as an isolated issue, but
instead recognizing that systemic
racism, poverty, and militarism
are closely connected. To-
gether they keep people of
all races down.
It marked a shift from
a period of reform to what
he called a period of revo-
lution. These might sound
like radical words —
and indeed many people
around King at the time felt that
this new campaign was a bit too
radical.
But King and his allies could
see that despite the huge victories
of the civil rights movement, ma-
jor societal problems still weren’t
resolved. They realized that it
would take a broad-based move-
ment of all struggling people to
change the conditions in our com-
munities.
In many ways, conditions are
worse now that they were 50 years
ago.
According to a new Institute for
Policy Studies report, 140 million
Americans are poor or low-in-
come. Yet 53 cents of every dis-
cretionary tax dollar goes to the
military, compared to just 15 cents
to fight poverty. Meanwhile, near-
ly half of all states have passed
laws making it harder for poor
people and people of color to vote.
People are definitely feeling
that in my state of Pennsylvania.
The most recent State of Work-
ing PA report finds that the bot-
tom 70 percent of Pennsylvania
workers saw their wages decline
between 2009 and 2014, during
what was termed the so-called “re-
covery.” Pennsylvania is in the top
four states for opioid overdoses,
and over 3 million people in our
state are living below or close to
the federal poverty line.
Pundits and politicians like to
preach about what we should do
to get out of poverty while blam-
ing us for experiencing it. But they
haven’t explained how it’s possi-
ble to have an economic recovery
without things getting better for
our families.
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If “the economy” can recover
without real people recovering,
then whose economy is it really?
What can we do about all this?
The first thing we can do is to
change our mentality, and drop
the shame and stigma that’s asso-
ciated with not being able to make
ends meet.
The second thing that we can
do is to connect with others. A new
Poor People’s Campaign is being
organized to fight back against
the war on the poor today, and it’s
coming to over 30 states — in-
cluding mine and maybe yours —
this spring. To learn more, check
out poorpeoplescampaign.org.
Nijmie Zakkiyyah Dzurinko is
a lifelong Pennsylvanian who be-
lieves in the power and potential
of everyday people. Distributed by
OtherWords.org.
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