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“T
here is nothing new
we are normalizing
about poverty. What is
C Hild W aTCH poverty, child hunger, and
new, however, is that
homelessness, and creat-
we now have the resources to get
Marian Wright ing historic income,
rid of it. Not too many years ago,
Edelman
wealth, and mobility gaps
Dr. Kirtley Mather, a Harvard
that threaten to destroy
geologist, wrote a book entitled
the American dream? If
Enough and to Spare. He set forth
the qualification for indi-
the basic theme that famine is
vidual and national great-
wholly unnecessary in the modern
ness is genuine concern
world. Today, therefore, the ques-
for the ‘least of these,’ too
tion on the agenda must read: Why
many
of
our
political
leaders and citizens
should there be hunger and privation in any land, in
are
failing.
any city, at any table, when man has the resources and
As our nation pauses for the national hol-
the scientific know-how to provide all mankind with
iday celebrating Dr. King’s birthday, I hope
we will not spend it just listening to speech-
es praising Dr. King but instead will heed
and act on his words.
When will we hear what Dr. King
declared in 1967—“the time has come for
an all-out world war against poverty”—and
work to win the first victory right here at
home in the richest nation on earth? Is it
possible to overcome our deficit in human
will, or is the fact that we have already
squandered so much time and still have so
far to go a reason to give
up?
Dr. King’s voice guides
the basic necessities of life?”
us
if we are willing to take
Forty-five years ago this month, Dr. Martin Luther
the
next step and use it as a
King, Jr. took a very rare sabbatical at an isolated
road
map for action. In
house in Jamaica far away from telephones and the
Where
Do We Go from
constant pressures of his life as a very public civil
Here?,
as
he reflected on
rights leader to write what would become his last
what
direction
the struggle
book: “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or
for
civil
rights
and
social justice should take
Community?” The excerpt above feels as though it
next,
he
shared
a
story about the need to
could have been written yesterday. Professor
commit
to
difficult
struggles for the long
Mather’s book arguing that mankind had achieved the
haul.
Dr.
King
described
a flight he had
ability to move beyond famine was published in 1944,
taken
from
New
York
to
London
years ear-
but in 2012, despite nearly seventy more years of
lier
in
an
older
propeller
airplane.
The trip
unparalleled advances both in scientific and techno-
took
nine
and
a
half
hours,
but
on
the way
logical capability and in global resources and wealth,
home,
the
crew
announced
the
flight
from
hunger and want are still rampant. Back then Dr. King
When Dr. King died in 1968
calling for a Poor People’s
Campaign, there were 25.4
million poor Americans,
including 11 million poor
children.
Today there are more than 46
million Americans living in
poverty, including 16.4 million
poor children
wrote:
“There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit
is in human will… The well-off and the secure have
too often become indifferent and oblivious to the
poverty and deprivation in their midst. The poor in
our countries have been shut out of our minds, and
driven from the mainstream of our societies, because
we have allowed them to become invisible.
Ultimately a great nation is a compassionate nation.
No individual or nation can be great if it does not
have a concern for ‘the least of these.’”
When Dr. King died in 1968 calling for a Poor
People’s Campaign, there were 25.4 million poor
Americans, including 11 million poor children. Today
there are more than 46 million Americans living in
poverty, including 16.4 million poor children. The
question of why we still allow poverty and hunger to
exist—and the answer—remain the same: The deficit
in human will.
As another political season gets into full swing in
the United States, a new crop of candidates are mak-
ing a lot of promises about their competing visions of
America. But how many TV debates are focusing on
whether America is a compassionate nation? How
many stump speeches are saying how shameful it is
that last year more Americans relied on food stamps
to eat than at any time since the program began in
1939? How many are responding to Occupy Wall
Street’s outcry about the morally obscene gulf
between rich and poor in our nation where the 400
highest income earners made as much as the com-
bined tax revenues of 22 states in 2008? Which PACs
are running commercials to remind Americans that
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London back to New York would take
twelve and a half. When the pilot came out
to visit the cabin, Dr. King asked him why.
“‘You must understand about the winds,’ he
said. ‘When we leave New York, a strong
tail wind is in our favor, but when we return,
a strong head wind is against us.’ Then he
added, ‘Don’t worry. These four engines are
capable of battling the winds.’”
Dr. King concluded: “In any social revo-
lution there are times when the tail winds of
triumph and fulfillment favor us, and other
times when strong head winds of disap-
pointment and setbacks beat against us
relentlessly. We must not permit adverse
winds to overwhelm us as we journey
across life’s mighty Atlantic; we must be
sustained by our engines of courage in spite
of the winds. This refusal to be stopped, this
‘courage to be,’ this determination to go on
‘in spite of’ is the hallmark of any great
movement.”
Today we need to rev up our engines of
courage, battle against the fierce head winds
of economic downturn, unemployment,
poverty, and greed that threaten to undo the
Caldwell’s, Hennessey, Goetsch
& McGee Funeral Home
Von D. Bailey
Funeral Director
20 NE 14th Avenue
Portland, OR 97232
503-232-4111
Fax 503-231-1586
von.bailey@sci-us.com
Page 6 The Portland Skanner January 18, 2012
progress of the last fifty years, and stay true
to the course Dr. King set for us. Now is the
time to end child poverty and hunger in
America.
Marian wright edelman is the President
of the Children’s Defense Fund.