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Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Commemoration

By Poverty Scholar Rev. Dan Chadwick
Erie, PA
January 2010

In commemoration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday, Rev. Dan Chadwick shared these remarks with the youth of a residential treatment facility with whom he works, along with showing excerpts dealing with the last years of King’s life from the documentaries Citizen King and Eyes on the Prize.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960’s, a time of turmoil and change. Many of you know this. But what you might not know about Dr. King was that he also spoke out against poverty. Towards the end of his life and ministry (he was a Baptist preacher) he began to focus on the inequality of the distribution of resources. The Haves and Have-Nots. He said, “What good is it for a black man to be allowed to go in and sit down in that diner when he can’t afford to eat at that diner?” Dr. King also realized that there were a great number of other races that were poor. What he designed to do was to bring the poor, all races, black, white, Latino, Asian, Indian, and others, together to speak in a unified voice against the poverty that was in America. To that end he and the other leaders started the Poor People’s Campaign.

This campaign had the goal of what Dr. King termed “a radical redistribution of economic power.” The wealthy had so much while hundreds of thousands of people were struggling to eat, living in substandard housing, barely existing. When the Poor People’s Campaign was just starting to grow, Dr. King was killed. There is speculation from some groups of people, that King was killed, not because of his efforts regarding civil rights, but because he was focused on economic redistribution. You see, the powers that be, did not care whether we got along as black and whites. What they cared about was their money. And when Dr. King began to speak out and gather people together against poverty and wanted to make sure that all people had enough money to live, which would take away from the money that the very rich had, he was then killed.

Today, there is a growing movement to re-ignite the Poor People’s Campaign. People are gathering together to speak out against poverty and the growing disparity (difference) between the rich and the poor. The poor keep getting poorer and the rich keep getting richer.

This is one of those issues that is bigger than anyone of us. It is bigger than me. It’s bigger than you. It is one of the most important issues in our time. Poverty. The unequal distribution of economic resources. When some people have so much money and others don’t have enough to live, the laws and policies that allow this need to be changed.

When you leave this place, when you get out of here, please remember that there are some issues that are so important that you cannot just leave them alone. You must speak out. Dr. King said that “There comes a time when silence is betrayal.” When you just shut up about injustice, you are betraying those who are being treated unjustly.

Speak out about what is right. Gather with others who also recognize injustice. You saw on the video the masses of people who are gathered together to speak out. When you get a whole lot of people saying the same thing all together you are louder than just yelling by yourself.

Remember: Dr. King spoke out against racism and poverty and injustice. You can too.