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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 28, 2013)
Opinion Marching Orders for the Future “Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now” B ERNIE F OSTER Founder/Publisher B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER Executive Editor T ED B ANKS Advertising Manager J ERRY F OSTER Account Executive L ISA L OVING News Editor H ELEN S ILVIS Multimedia Editor B RUCE P OINSETTE Reporter D AVID K IDD Graphic Designer M ONICA J. F OSTER Seattle Office Coordinator J ULIE K EEFE S USAN F RIED Photographers o n r e d f The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publica- tion, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., N ow that we’ve had two events at the Lincoln Memorial to commemo- rate the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, it is important to remember a few things about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. beyond his “I Have a Dream” speech. The question is always asked: What happens after the marches are over? Demonstrators left Washington, D.C. in 1963 deter- mined to change the American landscape. Consequently, we had passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. Those laws were passed not because of a speech in the nation’s capital, but because of the hard work and dedication of people at the local, state and national level to bring about change. While the “I Have a Dream” speech might have been Dr. King’s most popular oration, it was not his most substantive one. In 1963, Dr. King etched a prosaic picture of what America should look like in the future. But a far more important one was his “Mountain- top” speech, delivered in Memphis the night before he was assassinat- ed. In that speech, Dr. King outlined a plan for economic empowerment and told us how to strengthen our institutions to accomplish that goal. He reminded us, “Always anchor our external direct action with the power of economic with- drawal.” Dr. King explained, “We don’t have to argue with anybody. We don’t have to curse and go around T HE C URRY R EPORT George E. Curry acting bad with our words. We don’t need any bricks and bottles, we don’t need any Molotov cock- tails. We just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, ‘God sent us by here, to say to you that you’re not treating his chil- He wasn’t trying to create a spe- cial commission or hold conferences on how to strengthen the middle class. He was organiz- ing a Poor Peoples Campaign, a trek to Washington, D.C. to dram- atize the urgent need to help the least among us. After President Lyndon B. John- son shifted his focus from the War on Poverty to the war in Vietnam, Dr. King and the Southern Chris- tian Leadership Conference (SCLC) launched an effort in 1968 to seek economic justice for poor Blacks, Whites, Latinos and Native Americans. The idea was to have another March on Washing- ton that would force political Instead of placing so much emphasis on what Dr. King said in 1963, we should look at what he was doing at the time of his death dren right. And we’ve come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda—fair treat- ment, where God’s children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.” He urged us to “strengthen our Black institutions” by patronizing them. Instead of placing so much emphasis on what Dr. King said in 1963, we should look at what he was doing at the time of his death. leaders to address the issue of poverty. “We ought to come in mule carts, in old trucks, any kind of transportation people can get their hands on,” King said. “People ought to come to Washington, sit down if necessary in the middle of the street and say, ‘We are here; we are poor; we don’t have any money; you have made us this way… and we’ve come to stay until you do something about it.” SCLC continued the Poor Peo- ple’s March after King’s death, erecting a tent city on the Mall. After six weeks, demonstrators were evicted. Today, the poor are still suffer- ing. Poverty is defined as a family of four being able to live off of $23,021 a year. Today, a record 46.2 million people –15 percent of the U.S. population – are living in poverty. One of the goals of the 1963 March on Washington was a mini- mum wage that could lift a family of four out of poverty. They demanded that the minimum wage of $1.15 an hour be increased to $2 an hour. As a report by the Economic Policy Institute titled, “The Unfinished March: An Overview,” noted, “The inflation- adjusted value of the minimum wage today is about $2.00 less than it was at its peak value in 1968.” Worse than living on below- poverty wages is to have no job at all. “Even when the national unem- ployment rate has been low, the African American unemployment rate has been high,” the EPI report stated. When he was assassinated, Dr. King was helping organize garbage workers in Memphis. He was not dreaming because he was not asleep. We honor him by con- tinuing his work, not by merely continuing to recite his “I Have a Dream” speech. George E. Curry, former editor- in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Associa- tion News Service P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ- ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2013 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. To see The Skanner News on your smart phone go to theskannermobile.com or scan this QR code with your app. • • • • • • • • Local news Opinions Jobs, Bids Sports Entertainment Music reviews Bulletin board RSS feeds After the Commemorations — What’s Next? T he 1963 March on Washing- ton was a pivotal moment for African Americans, a day when people joined to fight for jobs, peace and justice. More than 250,000 people traveled to Washington, coming by busses, trains, and occasionally planes. They came despite the scourge of segregation, which meant that many who were driving had to carefully select the places they could stop and eat (actually most brought goodies from home) or relieve themselves. Despite obstacles, a quarter of a million people showed up in Washington, gathering peacefully and with dig- nity. As a result of the March, the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, and the Voting Rights Act in 1965 was passed with more than three-quarters of the House and Senate supporting both Acts. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. con- tinued his activity for jobs, peace and justice helping to organize the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965, which was interrupted by Bloody Sunday. He spoke, in 1965, to Playboy magazine, sug- gesting that “compensation” (he didn’t use the word reparations) would be the only way to close the economic gap between African Americans and Whites. He began connecting poverty with war in his 1967 speech “Beyond Viet- nam.” When he died, he was organizing the Poor People’s Cam- paign, envisioned as a way to B ENNETT C OLLEGE Julianne Malveaux bring tens of thousands of people to Washington, D.C. to demand that each department of the feder- al government recognize and ameliorate poverty issues in hous- ing, education, health, and other areas. The Poor People’s cam- million African Americans. Pro- portionately, the 1963 march drew 5 times as many African Ameri- cans as the 2013 March. What does this mean when we look at the status of African Amer- icans then and now? In 1963, the movement had clear goals. African Americans had been denied employment rights, civil rights, civil liberties, and vot- ing rights. The hundreds of thousands of African Americans who came to Washington were protesting, not only the restoration of these rights, but also a stop to the police brutality that had killed Fifty years after the March on Washington, we have yet to achieve the metrics that Dr. King offered paign was more muted than expected in the wake of Dr. King’s 1968 assassination, but some of the people came anyway. Even before the 2013 commem- orative march was organized, estimates were that 100,000 would join that March. In 1963, about 1.3 percent of our nation’s 18.9 million African Americans marched. Before the 2013 march (numbers may change as t) the 100,000 estimate represents just .2 oof one percent of our nation’s 44 or crippled supporters. People were so focused that change was made, and when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, he articulated his vision for our nation. He said: “I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits.” He set out an agenda that was economic, social and political. Fifty years after the March on Washington, we have yet to achieve the metrics that Dr. King offered. Millions experience “food insecurity”, or have nothing to eat several times a month. The education gap has not been closed, and African Ameri- can students are differently treated than others in the K-12 education system. Where is the equality? Paraphrasing Dr. King, African Americans have twice the negatives and half to positives in terms of equity. Little freedom has been achieved, especially when trillions are spent on sense- less wars, while our national unemployment rate exceeds 7 per- cent and the unofficial black unemployment rate is 25 percent. In the five years after the 1963 March on Washington, there were setbacks, but also the achievement of far-reaching goals. After the commemoration, the several events in Washington, DC, parallel events in other cities, and the NAACP’s online march, what will be the results? Will this genera- tion be as effective as Dr. King and his generation was? Will we mobilize around Voting Rights after the setback of a Supreme Court decision? Will we push to close the employment gap between African Americans and others?
