Today as Americans remember Martin Luther King Jr. many will focus on the vision King so eloquently illustrated in his “I Have a Dream” speech. However, what is often forgotten is that MLK attempted to accomplish the dream many years after he spoke at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963. The “I Have a Dream” speech was delivered on August 28, 1963. Four years later, in 1967, MLK attempted to move the dream forward with his “Where Do We Go from Here?” speech. A video of the conclusion of this speech can be listened to by clicking the video box on the left. A summary with highlighted quotes can be read below.
In 1963 focused on racial inequality. In 1967, MLK realized that the root cause of many of these problems was found in income inequality. MLK Jr. reflected many sentiments of the Occupy Wall Street movement forty years before the movement began, as seen in the quote below,
“A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life's roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life's highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.”
President Obama is often criticized for wanting to raise taxes on the rich, but MLK actually went much further than this, advocating guaranteed full employment or, in the alternative, a guaranteed annual income for every citizen. By today’s standards, MLK would almost certainly be seen as a radical socialist.
“The problem indicates that our emphasis must be twofold: We must create full employment, or we must create incomes. People must be made consumers by one method or the other. Once they are placed in this position, we need to be concerned that the potential of the individual is not wasted. New forms of work that enhance the social good will have to be devised for those for whom traditional jobs are not available... Work of this sort could be enormously increased, and we are likely to find that the problem of housing, education, instead of preceding the elimination of poverty, will themselves be affected if poverty is first abolished.”
“Now, our country can do this. John Kenneth Galbraith said that a guaranteed annual income could be done for about twenty billion dollars a year. And I say to you today, that if our nation can spend thirty-five billion dollars a year to fight an unjust, evil war in Vietnam, and twenty billion dollars to put a man on the moon, it can spend billions of dollars to put God's children on their own two feet right here on earth...”
Some might read these quotes and see MLK as a communist. However, MLK rejected the dichotomy of communism versus capitalism, saying the country needed to reach a “higher synthesis” which incorporated the truths of both philosophies,
“Now, don't think you have me in a bind today. I'm not talking about communism. What I'm talking about is far beyond communism... What I'm saying to you this morning is communism forgets that life is individual. Capitalism forgets that life is social. And the kingdom of brotherhood is found neither in the thesis of communism nor the antithesis of capitalism, but in a higher synthesis. It is found in a higher synthesis that combines the truths of both.”
The next year, in 1968, MLK started the “Poor People’s Campaign” to demand a government solution to the problems of income inequality. Sadly, MLK was assassinated that year, and the campaign lost most of its momentum as a result. For the next four decades America would continue to experience the normal economic cycles, and income inequality would only grow. America has remembered the dream, but sadly forgot how MLK said it could be accomplished.
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