Though Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is best known for his work with civil rights and his “I Have a Dream” speech, he was passionate about two other issues: ending war through nonviolence practice and alleviating the plight of the poor through labor relations. In fact, he was speaking on labor relations the night before his assassination.
This morning, NPR’s Weekday ran a segment that highlighted his work and included many wonderful and inspiring quotations from his speeches on poverty. The last 15-20 minutes are recommended. I’ve quote some of it below.
One of his speeches, in particular, cuts across race lines and even gender lines to highlight a problem that Americans today are all too familiar with. Generally known as the plight of the working poor, Martin Luther King stated in a 1968 speech:
“There is the problem of under-employment and there are thousands and thousand, I would say millions of people in the Negro community who are poverty stricken — not because they are not working but because they receive wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the main stream of the economic life of our nation.”
Most of the poverty stricken people of America are persons who are working every day and they end up getting part-time wages for full-time work.”
This is still the case 45 years later. We are actually much more aware of this now since our economy has been impacted across the board. Just as Dr. King said, we have an awareness and sense of urgency about economic downturn when it affects the white folks too.
All too often when there is mass unemployment in the black community, it’s referred to as a social problem and when there is mass unemployment in the white community, it’s referred to as a depression. But there is no basic difference.
Millions of Americans, across the racial spectrum–White, Asian, Latino, Black–are underemployed or work very hard for wages that cannot sustain them or their families. With women receiving on average 77 cents to the $1.00, women, particularly minority women, are especially affected.
The wage disparity is just one way that women struggle in today’s economy. The book The War on Moms: On Life in a Family Un-friendly Nation describes the many public policies that undermine families and mothers as they work to provide for their children.
It describes how stay at home mothers are not exempt from being affected by these policies as many mothers are finding themselves needing to find work to supplement their husband’s incomes, or in the case of divorce and death, find themselves single mothers which is the single most determinant of children and women transitioning into poverty.
War on Moms is just the book that can give realistic preparation for young women preparing for motherhood in regards to economic and financial impacts of being a woman in the workforce, whether by choice or by necessity. And sadly, we see that many young women do have an awareness of these issues and they may find themselves discouraged from being mothers because of them.
Martin Luther King Jr. may not have called his unfinished work a fight in the War on Families but he could have. When the working poor are unable to make a fair wage, they are unable to provide for their families, regardless of race or gender though still racial disparities compound the problems. When parents cannot provide for their children, children are raised in poverty and the cycle is perpetuated. Dr. King realized in 1968 that fair wages or “full-time pay for full-time work” were needed to break the cycle. Today, it is still needed.
As Mormons, we believe that self-reliance is necessary for spiritual and temporal success. And yet, in the United States, we live in the most family-unfriendly nation in the developed world. There are policies that stand in the way of families working toward self-sufficiency. We can no longer say that people need to work harder and then they’ll be able to pull themselves out of poverty. Some are successful but yet many are causalities and given our covenant to “mourn with those who mourn” it seems inconsistent to expect the many to become the exceptions. Through advocating for family friendly policies, like fair pay laws, we can address, at its root, some of the causes of poverty in our nation.
War on Moms describes some of the ways that these disparities can be addressed. MomsRising.org provides a grassroots platform for women across the spectrum to advocate for policies that would alleviate the strain on the working poor. Their book The Motherhood Manifesto also highlights how policies in business and government can be reformed to address and prevent poverty and grant the dignity of which Dr. Martin Luther King spoke.
It cannot be minimized or ignored that racial disparities continue to exist in the United States. When working for family friendly policies, it cannot be just for the white, middle class families with a working father and a stay at home mother but the needs of all races residing in our country must be address. The work of Dr. King continues and must continue until each person can “assert [his/her] dignity and worth. We must stand up amidst a system that still oppresses us and develop an unassailable and majestic sense of values.”
WAVE readers, what organizations or efforts are you familiar with that offers innovative and effective strategies for bringing people out of poverty in the United States? Particularly, are you familiar with efforts that address racial disparities separate or in addition to women’s issues?
It is the goal of the Women’s Service Mission to learn together on to effectively serve and assist others in their hardships. If you have knowledge of these areas, please share your experiences here. As always, if you are familiar with or care particularly about an issue that affects women around the world, please write and submit a guest post to: service@ldswave.org.
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