The Appeal honors the legacy and the man Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Endowed with an abiding faith in his Creator, a combative spirit against injustice, and a soaring, booming oratorical style, Dr. King laid the groundwork through his peaceful march campaigns that eventually gave way to the passing of the Civil Rights Laws which finally recognized the illegal discrimination that had been visited upon all so-called “black” citizens inside the United States.
The stubborn and abject ignorance that manifested in the unwillingness of the culturally constructed “whites”to grant these basic human rights had gone on for centuries.
Finally given a fairer chance at the economic table, black citizens proved and continue to prove their merits in myriad ways on the economic landscape culminating in the nomination of Barack Obama as President of these United States in a relatively short period of time in nation time.
Thanks to the efforts of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and other members of the Civil Rights Revolution the United States went on to a social evolution that has improved outwardly the overt bias against people of color.
Vast economic, educational, legal, and social differences still linger in the negative undercurrent.
There is still more work to be done in this area.
Dr. King’s message of social justice over business interests ring true to this very day.
He certainly recognized the inequity of maldistributed income and wealth.
In 1951, working on his doctorate in theology at Boston University, the young King would tell his new girlfriend Coretta Scott that no small elite should “control all the wealth.”
“A society based on making all the money you can and ignoring people’s needs is wrong.”
In an academic paper the next year King argued that injustice sits rooted in “the concentration of power and resources in the hands of a relatively small wealthy class.”
A few years later, in 1956, King as a young preacher publicly shared his dream of a world that left “privilege and property widely distributed, a world in which men will no longer take necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes.”
Who has time to worry about economic “growth”, interest rates or the gyrations of the stock market when they do not have a home to live in, a job to go to, food to eat and money to provide for himself as well as his family?
Good paying jobs should be the hallmark of any capitalist country seeking to obtain a thriving middle class yet we have seen no action taken by Congress on a Jobs Plan since The Second Great Depression, when Wall Street, the hedge funds, and the Banksters’ all quickly received mega-billion dollar bailouts.
Republicans are busy cutting safety net programs for the swelling ranks of the unemployed and obstructing all legislation pertaining to any Jobs Plan, are dead-set against any government hiring of workers, which begs the question if corporations will not hire and government is stymied from adding any new workers because of Republican unwillingness where will the jobs come from?
McDonalds and Burger King?
Instead of helping out their constituents otherwise known as the people who voted them into office they prefer to spend most of their time focusing on any scandals that come up McCarthy style ala Benghazi, or continuing their open revolt against Obamacare drafting for the umpteenth time (40+ we have lost count) a resolution to kill it.
Medicare For all would vastly improve American health: Both physically and mentally while also putting over-burdened health care expenses out to pasture. Studies have shown Medicare For All to be cost-saving in comparison to the Most Expensive Health Care For All in The World that operates in the United States. A myopically designed Health Care Plan that sees Insurance Companies realizing the gains while the Death Care is doled out between fighting consumers. The working class correct in positing that they have less healthcare than those who do not/ cannot work?
All the while Big Business/ Big Insurance/ Wall Street / Big Bankers looks the other way with record hoards of cash sitting on the sidelines.
Millions of Americans who are struggling and not being represented in the political white noise discourse need a national leader with the moral integrity and dogged temerity that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. provided in his leading of the Civil Rights Marches in the 1960s.
Those marches which provide an excellent blueprint into how people can organize and fight back against the monied interests ignited a spark of moral outrage and fortification of spirit that manifested into a vibrant movement that went out and seized the moral high ground.
Dr. King it is not as widely known was also a big proponent for Labor.
In fact, he had attended a union rally for sanitation workers just prior to the day of his assassination.
A true champion of the people, of all people, Dr. King’s philosophy of non-violence counteracted the present day beliefs that all blacks were savages and could not be counted on to act dignified and respectfully.
The outrageous and vicious attacks on Dr. King and the peaceful civil rights leaders by policeman and their dogs captured on the new thrilling technology television news programs lampooned this mistaken belief and proved authoritatively and viscerally that they were not the uncivilized ones and struck a powerful chord with millions of Americans.
Dr. King was called upon for the first time by civil rights leaders to speak in a church in Birmingham, after a church was bombed murdering young black children. Civil rights marchers were being attacked and killed, delivering a powerful invocation that catapulted him into national prominence.
That was the first time his booming, soaring, rich, deep voice resonated on a crowd but it would not be the last.
Upon hearing Dr. King’s voice One was compelled to listen, and upon understanding his message could not credibly repudiate its contents.
Struck down much too early by an assassin’s bullet, just as the country was heading into it’s current phase of plutocracy and corporatist control once again, the working man lost one of it’s best advocates.
Some people are not fully aware of Dr. King’s never-ending quest to right the wrongs of economic inequality in America.
He spoke out against the powers that be, in his own inimitable style, and demanded a redistribution of the wealth, which then as it is now, is in the hands of too few, while many wake up to suffering, apathy and disillusionment as their bedmate.
Imagine a farmer who had hundreds upon hundreds of acres of fertile farmland but only used an extremely small parcel of it, less than a mile, to grow fruits and vegetables and all kinds of produce, some more exotic than any other place in the world.
But in the vast unused farmlands, the hinterlands, there grew nothing as they were neglected and the soil itself lay wasting in the heated rays from the sunshine above.
This is a metaphor for what is happening today in the United States.
Where vast riches are being hoarded by billionaires of industry while too many ordinary Americans have seen their wages stagnate and their upward mobility stifled.
This is why it is imperative for all citizens to unite, all working people to fight for a more progressive system, where the tax rates are much higher on Big Rich and Big Business.
Where Big Labor has a seat and is heard at the table.
Where unions and workers rights are respected and they can work and retire with dignity.
Where the poor, veterans, students, infirm, elderly and mentally ill are not attacked as ‘lazy” and “not entitled” by politicians running for the highest office.
Where veterans will not have to fight in corporate wars under the guise of “spreading democracy”, putting our brave men and women in harms way, while after their discharge, not looking out for their needs in employment, education and housing and willful ignorance meeting them upon their fortunate return from a hellish place.
The Appeal stands by the message that emanated from Dr. King’s soul and in his courageous actions.
A good society levels up the poor and levels down predatory plutocracy and corporatism.
This is the foundation on which The Appeal rests.
A foundation built by the likes of Touissant L’ouverture, John Brown, Frederick Douglass, W.E.B. Dubois, Malcom X, Muhammad Ali, Martin Luther King Jr. and many , many others.
We remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today with pride, respect and gratefulness and look forward to others in the current generation to step forward to carry the great mantle of economic, political, social and legal freedom forward to a more just and egalitarian society.
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