Martin Luther King
On January 17 millions of Americans will stay home from work in honor of Martin Luther King. Even those who are not fortunate enough to get the day off will no doubt be reminded of him as they scroll through their various social media feeds. You will see friends, family, (Especially.) politicians, and even businesses quoting or referencing him, commending his accomplishment and claiming to eximplify some aspect of him. Television shows and podcasts will discuss him at nausea. Almost all of these conversations will be focused in one of two areas, his work on civil rights and voting rights. Now let me be the first to say that he deserves all the recognition he gets in these areas, no question. However I want to ask a question a teacher once posed to my class in gig school, did Martin Luther King want to help the poor? Most of us would answer yes, in fact that was how we all answered in my freshman year of high school too. It seemed obvious, all of us having heard of the March on Washington and his I Have a Dream Speech, his work on the Birmingham Campaign, so we all assumed that he wanted to do something for the poor. With all of us on the same page my teacher asked another question, what did he do for them or was he trying to do for them? Being high school freshmen this may surprise you that none of us could come up with compelling answer. The sad truth is though that most adults, heck many people reading this probably can’t tell you what he was really trying to do for the economically challenged. My teacher though had an answer, The Poor Peopls’s Campaign and a guaranteed income.