The Economic Lessons of Dr. Martin Luther King

By Dedrick Muhammad

One of the most overlooked aspects of Martin Luther King‘s legacy is his work around economic justice and poverty. Though the landmark rally in 1963 during which King delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech is now widely known as “The March on Washington,” the complete title of that event was “The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” In fact, in the last year of his life, Dr. King was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign, a multiracial effort to alleviate poverty and provide guaranteed income for every citizen. King understood that without greater economic equality, racial disparities and divisions could not be overcome.

In 1967, Dr. King wrote the foreword for the Freedom Budget

incontent-ad2"> – a far-reaching and ambitious social proposal created by economist Leon Keyserling and March on Washington organizer Bayard Rustin. It involved massive investments in public works and infrastructure, training programs that would upgrade skills and education, employment opportunity expansion, affordable public health services, and raising the minimum wage to two dollars an hour – an amount equivalent to $13.79 in buying power today, though our federal minimum wage is currently $7.25 an hour.

The Freedom Budget, along with many of the economic goals of the civil rights movement, never came to pass, leaving a racial economic chasm that persists to this day. Today the Freedom Budget remains startlingly relevant, emphasizing issues such as job creation, living wages, access to better health care, and wealth redistribution – relevant and urgent problems that still impair our country.

Read the rest of this Martin Luther King piece at BET