Memphis must help revive MLK’s work to end poverty
The commemorations to Martin Luther King Jr. ended last month. But not for the Rev. Dr. William Barber II. Nor for the Rev. Liz Theoharis. And not for the Rev. Edith Love. Barber and Theoharis are co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign — which King was energizing before he was gunned down in Memphis more than 50 years ago — to mobilize people against poverty. Nowadays, it looks like poverty is winning. Forty million people in the U.S. are poor. Half of that number are extremely poor. A quarter of them are children. And Memphis, the place where King took his last breath, is the poorest large city in the nation.
That’s why Barber and Theoharis announced at the National Civil Rights Museum last month they
would revive King’s last campaign. Said they would travel to the nation’s Capitol and more than 30 state capitals in a 40day push to take up that unfinished business of ending poverty.
That push began across the nation last week — with hundreds marching, sitting-in and participating in direct action. In Nashville, protesters blocked traffic as they marched to the State Capitol.
“You will see people training for a massive mobilization of voter registration, you will see power building,” Barber said last month. “This is not an event or a moment, this is a goal to build a movement.”
It’s a movement that Love, a Memphis Unitarian Universalist minister, couldn’t afford to shun.
“There was this girl who had just turned 18, and she was about to give birth,” Love said. “She was homeless … she had just aged out of foster care …” “That’s poverty.” The image of that homeless pregnant teenager, as well as others, motivated Love to join others to put the training she received from Barber last year into action. Last Monday, she rode with 20 other Memphians to join the Nashville demonstrations.
“We expected to be arrested immediately,” Love said. “But we weren’t … we were out there in the sun for three hours…maybe it (not being arrested) was because there were a lot of old white people there …”
The fact that more Memphians weren’t at the protest probably reflects that many didn’t have the means to get there. But, she said, there was no doubt a Memphis delegation would be on the scene.
“Dr. Barber told us that since Memphis was the place that crucified King, Memphis ought to have a hand in resurrecting King,” Love said.
Ideally, that hand should be a strong one.
First, there’s no shortage of evidence to show that curbing poverty benefits everyone. A recent study, for example, published in the journal Social Work Research, found that for every $1 spent to reduce childhood poverty, another $7 would be saved.
That’s savings that could go toward health care, infrastructure, education and resources to build the society, as opposed to bandaging it.
Then there’s the moral argument the campaign is pushing; that in a nation as prosperous as the U.S., the numbers of poor people should dwindle.
Unfortunately, though, that argument has turned on its head by those who view poverty as a character flaw of those who struggle with it — when the flaws lie in the conditions that allow it to persist.
That’s the mindset the Poor People’s Campaign must change — and it seems they’re up for the fight.
Because it wasn’t enough to honor King for his role in forcing America to live up to its ideals and to reckon with its conscience on failing to do that.
Now, the key is to rediscover that conscience.
“We need to change the narrative so that we aren’t just talking about these issues on the 50th anniversary (of King’s assassination) or on King day in January, and the rest of the time, there’s no discussion,” Barber said.
If the energy and dedication of Love and others are any indication, there’ll be a lot more than discussion. There’ll be action.
Action that is 50 years overdue.