His call for service and economic justice 40 years ago
echoes a timeless message for Americans
today
Everybody has a dream.We must recognize that we can't solve our problems now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power ... this means a revolution of values and other things. The whole structure of American life must be changed.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“I Have a Dream” speech
For many Americans, it once included a home of one’s own, a good job with decent pay, affordable health care and a sense of security that would carry them into retirement. Now, with that dream shattered by a blizzard of pink slips, foreclosures, bankruptcies, lost benefits, frozen wages and mounting medical bills, people are wondering what happened to the American dream.
As a hopeful nation inaugurates a new president, it also pauses to reflect on what would have been the 80th birthday of a man whose dream helped to pave the way for this historic new presidency.
America desperately needed Martin Luther King Jr. to right some wrongs nearly half a century ago, but now his legacy strikes a poignant chord in the hearts of the downtrodden, perhaps more poignantly than ever.
For all of us, it resounds a call to service.
King’s campaigns
In his short life, King brought to the forefront the atrocities that were tarnishing America’s reputation as a democracy. While most Americans know about his efforts on behalf of civil liberty and racial equality, many don’t realize, forty years later, that socioeconomic justice for all Americans represented a major part of his dream.
King envisioned a better America – where one could rise above the impositions of gender, race and class and receive living wages, affordable health care and a good education.
He gained notoriety as a young minister in 1955 while leading a transportation boycott on behalf of Rosa Parks, the black seamstress who refused to give up her seat to a white man on a segregated Alabama bus. For the next 12 years, he led endless campaigns in the streets of America and on the steps of the Capitol, not just for civil rights but for the sake of all people, especially the poor.
"What good is the right to sit at a lunch counter," King said, "if one can't afford the price of a meal? There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he is a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid, or day laborer.”
His protest tactics incorporated a spiritual approach, with books, speeches and nonviolent marches for social justice. He adhered to Ghandi’s path of action – the satyahraha, or “firmness in truth” – which combines civil disobedience and constructive service.
King knew fear and looked it squarely in the eye as he faced verbal and physical assault and even jail, admitting he was often afraid. “But, in that darkness,” he said, “I found a radiant star of unity.”
King died in 1968 while campaigning for the working rights of trash collectors in Memphis, Tenn., leaving America with a lamp unto its feet and a road map for positive social change.
Sanitation workers' strike, Memphis, Tenn., 1968
Now, as the nation once again faces a regressing onslaught of atrocities shaking the very foundations of democracy – war, Wall Street greed, a health care holocaust and a new Great Depression – Americans are being called to keep King’s dream alive and follow his example of building rather than destroying.
Broken dreams?
This is a different country than it was in the 1960s when King called on the nation to search its soul. Yet American society is now better off in some ways better and worse off in others than the one he tried to improve.
While today's social issues are subtler and harder to confront directly, they insidiously persist despite King’s and other activists’ efforts. Black workers are still paid less than equally qualified white workers, and blacks are arrested more often. Latinos similarly experience discrimination while Mexican immigrants face a barrage of imposing issues in Arizona and across the nation.
A simple stroll down any toy store aisle shockingly proves that gender roles haven’t changed much since King’s era. Girls still play with toy vacuum cleaners while society wonders why a female never quite made it to the Oval Office. Likewise, boys still play combat games with violent toys given to them by those who remain appalled by the loss of innocent civilian lives in the Iraqi war.
Political leaders preach for a return to morality and then cut social welfare programs in favor of military spending. To that, King would say exactly what he did nearly 40 years ago in his book, Where Do We Go from Here? Chaos or Community:
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
But perhaps the most disturbing setback revolves around wages, an issue that King addressed prolifically in both written and spoken words.
Wage nightmares
In his “I Have a Dream” speech during the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, King called for “a national minimum wage act that will give all Americans a decent standard of living.” He believed that America’s religious values called for a society in which all workers could share in the prosperity that they help create.
Since then, the federal minimum wage reveals a sordid history, one that would greatly disappoint King if he were alive today. Not only did it fail to reflect steady increases, but its spending power decreased quite dramatically since King’s time.
The first minimum wage of 25 cents an hour, established in 1938, had increased to $1.60 at the time of King’s death in 1968. Twenty years later, it had only risen by one dollar and 75 cents to $3.35. Then in 1997, the wage came to a slamming halt at $4.25, where it would remain frozen for 10 years – an dismal decade in American wage history during which the Bush administration also cut overtime pay in 2003 for 8 million minimum-wage workers.
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Federal minimum wage by the numbers:
Current: $6.55 per hour, effective July 24, 2008
Workers earning this rate: 10 million
By gender: Nearly 60 percent female
Next increase: $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009
____________________________________________________________________
Meanwhile, Congress approved its own annual pay hikes while rejecting the Fair Minimum Wage Act dozens of times for the working majority, giving itself seven raises during a 9-year span and denying low-income workers their own desperately needed raises.
Finally, in 2007, the ice broke and the minimum climbed a bleak 90 cents. In 70 years, the minimum wage had only risen by $4.90. And, 40 years after King’s passing, the wage had only increased by a shockingly low $2.65.
King never dreamed that, four decades later, the American minimum wage would rank the lowest among the world’s industrialized nations and that its value would decrease 41 percent while the cost of living skyrocketed.
He never dreamed that, in the 1980s, the wages of millions of food service and agricultural workers would be reduced to half of the federal minimum and then frozen for another 15 years, with these workers excluded from earning a minimum wage in the 21st century by an act of Congress.
King never dreamed that, four decades later, more than 28 million workers would earn less than $9 an hour. Nor did he dream that, four decades later, 36 million Americans would live below the poverty level.
His dream had been broken.
Land of opportunity?
The grim economic statistics released by the U.S. Dept. of Labor suggest that America remains in dire need of King’s prophetic proposals for economic justice.
The number of unemployed Americans reached 4.5 million in December 2008, the highest since 1982, while unemployment benefit claims rose 45 percent. Stock prices nosedived a whopping 34 percent and Congress allocated more than $700 billion of taxpayers’ money to bail out Wall Street. The price of homes in cities across the nation plummeted nearly 20 percent.
Less than 25 percent of the nation’s workers have jobs that pay at least $16 an hour with benefits, and more than 47 million Americans lack health insurance. The end result is that 75 percent of American workers struggle in jobs that don’t provide a living wage, pension or health care.
“Unfortunately, life is getting tougher for the average American worker, not better,” declared Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), as if this was breaking news for most Americans.
And then there are 12 million workers struggling to make ends meet on the minimum wage. If life had become tougher for the average American worker, as Sen. Schumer implied, then it had to be excruciating for those making minimum wage.
These wage-earners are mostly adults whose earnings provide more than half of their household income. Many are minorities and more than 60 percent are women, including 760,000 single mothers.
In 2006 they earned $206 per week, or $10,712 annually, before taxes – $8,650 less than the amount needed to lift a family of four out of poverty. They paid a 7.65 percent combined Social Security and Medicare tax on every dollar earned, in addition to other state and city taxes.
Let them eat cake
Meanwhile, their CEOs went laughing all the way to the bank.
Corporate profits rose 87 percent while wages fell steadily last year. The average compensation for CEOs in 1980 was 40 times greater than the average worker in their companies. Today it is more than 500 times. As CEO compensation grew 23 percent, the national average hourly wage of $15.46 has seen a mere three-cent increase since 2003.
According to The New York Times, pharmaceutical czar Sidney Taurel, CEO of Eli Lilly, earned $12.5 million – a paltry sum by many CEO salaries – the equivalent income of 1,167 minimum-wagers. In addition, he received $7.04 million in stock and options, $4 million in incentives, and $215,044 in other compensation, which included $107,105 for use of the company's jet.
Just as Taurel retired in 2008 with a golden parachute worth $30 million, the company announced major cutbacks in retirement and health care benefits for 22,000 employees — and raised insurance premiums by more than 50 percent. At the same time, the New England Journal of Medicine claimed that the company had “suppressed negative clinical trial data” for some of its most profitable products, including Prozac, the world’s most widely prescribed antidepressant.
King had words for such circumstances, which now appear eerily written for Lilly and its workers:
“There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, as well as profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, then the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.”
The call for living wages
Shortly before his death, King pressured the government to redirect its budgetary priorities to support living wages rather than waging war.
"Millions of people are making inadequate wages,” he said. “Not only do they work in our hospitals, they work in our hotels, our laundries and in domestic service. But no labor is menial unless you're not getting adequate wages. What makes the work menial is the income."
Today that menial income is no longer limited to farms and garment factories. It includes big box chains and supercenters, large companies, academia, prominent think tanks and newsrooms, as well as hospitals, hotels, restaurants and retail stores. It now includes white-collar office administrators, who often toil 12-hour days without overtime and without proper breaks – if they’re lucky enough to still have a job.
King’s speeches and books prompt Americans to examine their core values regarding work and income: Does running a successful business hinge on paying low wages? Does being an underpaid worker mean living in fear of retribution for speaking up at work? Do we engage in civic discourse and community meetings to try to make a difference in our lives instead of just whining about how bad things are? Are we willing to give up Monday Night Football and “Desperate Housewives” to do so?
As Americans, do we believe in democracy until it means giving up our own agendas? When addressing wage issues, it means no longer remaining consumed with our individual slice of the pie but with a piece of it for everybody.
Putting words into action
If King was alive today, what would he say about stagnant wages and underpaid workers in the face of a multibillion-dollar Wall Street bailout? He would most likely advise us to look within our hearts, individually and collectively, to resolve our current dilemmas and find the moral responsibility to raise all the boats, not just the yachts.
In a 1967 speech, King said:
“Let us lift up those who live on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. I look forward to the day when all who work for a living will be one...the day when we bring into full realization the American dream...a dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few; a dream of a nation where all our resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of humanity.”
Strategic action begins with individual accountability, by asking ourselves critical questions: Am I concerned merely with my own needs? What am I willing to sacrifice for positive social change? How do I treat others? What is the foundation of my belief systems? Are they steeped in scarcity and deprivation?
Americans are all sailing on the same ship. When there’s a storm, it affects all passengers, whether they’re eating steak in First Class or peanuts in Third Class. When the ship starts to sink, First Class will go down with steerage, unless people press those at the helm to alter their course while looking within their hearts at their own underlying operating platforms.
Health care represents just one disparate system teaching America that hard lesson. The financial system, with the stock market and Ponzi-style Madoff schemes, is another. Suddenly, as familiar paradigms of being, doing and having disintegrate, many people find themselves clinging to life rafts full of holes on a sinking Titanic.
In his “I Have a Dream” speech, King said:
"We have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights … which must be the era of revolution. We must recognize that we can't solve our problems now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power ... this means a revolution of values and other things. The whole structure of American life must be changed. America is a hypocritical nation and (we) must put (our) own house in order."
Wage campaigns: putting the house in order
According to Let Justice Roll, a national nonpartisan coalition of faith, community, labor and business organizations, nearly 400 faith leaders from all 50 states have already endorsed their campaign in support of raising the federal minimum wage to $10 in 2010. The group’s policy advisers claim it now requires $10 per hour to match the buying power of the 1968 minimum wage.
"Our economy wouldn't be in such a mess if wages had not fallen so far behind the cost of living and income inequality had not grown to levels last seen on the eve of the Great Depression," said Holly Sklar, senior policy adviser for Let Justice Roll and co-author of A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future. "As we are seeing so painfully, an economy fueled by rising debt rather than rising wages is a house of cards."
This “10 in 2010” initiative would give more than 145,000 workers – of whom 58 percent are women and 25 percent are single mothers – a severely needed raise. While a far cry from a living wage, it represents one small step in the right direction and a healing gesture for America’s struggling workforce.
Rev. Steve Copley, chair of Let Justice Roll, said in a recent statement: "It is immoral that the minimum wage is worth less now than it was in 1968, the year Dr. Martin Luther King was killed while fighting for living wages for sanitation workers.” He added: “It's also bad for the economy. Minimum wage dollars go right back to local business through spending on food, health care and other necessities."
Let Justice Roll policy advisors claim that most of the ten occupations projected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics to have the largest employment growth during 2006-2016, such as retail salespersons, fast food workers, home health aides and janitors, have disproportionate numbers of minimum wage workers.
These also represent the large majority of job “opportunities” posted in classified ads and unemployment offices in Yavapai County, Ariz., where The Sedona Observer is produced. The paper’s Workplace, Profiles in Courage and Senior pages further probe the disturbing predominance of such low-wage jobs in a county that has one of the highest price housing markets and cost of living indexes in all of Arizona.
King would probably urge us to resurrect his Poor People's Campaign by supporting these living wage initiatives. And he would encourage support of federal legislation, such as the Employee Free Choice Act, by telling us to send letters to political representatives, meet with congressmen and religious leaders and exercising our rights on the job.
Solutions for change
King believed that change starts with building rather than destroying and that the crusade for decent wages must be won not on a battlefield, but in people’s hearts.
He strived to forge a common ground on which all people could join together to address community issues. If he was here now, he would remind us that we have to release our complacency. Americans can no longer lie around like sleeping dogs hoping that things will change or that elected officials will toss them a bone.
That means turning off the TV and coming together as a community in constructive, strategic, solution-oriented dialogue that embraces all walks of life and gives every voice a chance to be heard in a state of grace.
“A nation can flounder as readily in the face of moral bankruptcy as it can through financial bankruptcy. Unity is the great need of the hour,” King said.
Change also begins with media willing to investigate workplace and business practices while acknowledging the voices of the downtrodden by telling their stories – instead of neglecting these reports out of fear of offending advertisers with content that opposes their financial interests.
Finally, King would encourage us all to look within ourselves and examine our belief systems, especially those that lead to the crippling paralysis of fear and mediocrity.
Spiritual versus financial approaches
No one can deny that we are in crisis, especially when it comes to low wages. King would coax us to identify its spiritual root cause – one based on lack of trust in a higher power and on fear. The turnaround begins with the dismantling of our own scarcity-based mentalities and self-centered, personal agendas.
King believed that prosperity would result not just from a change in wage laws but from a spiritual shift within ourselves…when we allow ourselves to get out of our heads, where fear lurks, and into our hearts, where courage soars...when we end the fragmentation that divides us as a community… when we realize it’s not about personal loss or the demise of corporate profits but about everyone prospering – employees as well as their employers.
Even the Bible says: “You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads the grain; the laborer is worthy of his wages." (Timothy 5:18). King directed Americans to act upon that moral responsibility by creating new paradigms to uphold living wages, integrity and dignity in the workplace for the benefit of all.
When we commit to an ethical life, we are no longer ruled by the changing conditions of the outside world. When we identify a thread of meaning in our lives, we find new definitions of happiness. When we exchange scarcity consciousness with trust in a guiding force, then prosperity graces our world. When we serve others, we find that our own lives flourish. It is this spiritual foundation of courage, of replacing consumption with compassion, which King’s legacy calls for us to establish.
Americans can start this process by joining together in building positive relationships among all strata of society – business owners, political leaders and the low-wage workers – stepping outside of the box and out of the boat so that together everyone can walk on water.
Service: living the dream
The question then becomes for each individual: “How can I best serve others?” King’s legacy also reminds us of this call to service, which he regarded as the great equalizer. “Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve,” he said.
Are we willing to step out of the comfort zone, or are we going to wait for the next American debacle or disaster to spur us into action?
Together we can make our community, county, state and country a better place for all citizens, in accordance with King’s dream – if we get off our cell phones, out of our cars and cubicles and off the couch and shift into strategic action. Like King and Rosa Parks, we can turn rage into “cou-rage,” one person at a time, one step at a time.
In his book, Strength to Love, King wrote:
“True compassion is more than just flinging a coin to a beggar. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. We must combine the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, a tough mind and a tender heart.”
In this manner we can begin to clear the social debris of a heinous system that thrives on racism, poverty, class oppression and war. Together, with the toughness of the serpent and the softness of the dove, we can focus on service and turn it into the kind of force King hoped it would become. This was his dream, one that we must keep alive.
The holiday in King’s honor should not just represent a day off; it must be a day ON to continue his dream of peace, justice and equality fueled by positive, nonviolent action. Perhaps the greatest way to honor him is by performing individual acts of kindness through service to others. In doing so, we can embody that dream and transform it into a positive new reality for all Americans.
Catherine J. Rourke is an award-winning journalist focusing on labor, work-life balance and social advocacy issues who also edits and publishes The Sedona Observer. This article includes excerpts from a speech she delivered at Yavapai College, in Prescott, Ariz., on Jan. 16, 2006, at the Diversity Alliance of Central Yavapai County’s Martin Luther King Celebration.
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