Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew that gaining equality before the law was only a first step to ending white supremacy; equity in economic opportunity was more critical and challenging.
“The prohibition of barbaric behavior, while beneficial to the victim, does not constitute the attainment of equality or freedom,” he wrote in an essay for The Nation magazine on March 14, 1966.
“Someone has been profiting from the low wages of Negroes. Depressed living standards for Negroes are a structural part of the economy. Certain industries are based upon the supply of low-wage, underskilled and immobile nonwhite labor,” he added.
The United States has made huge strides since King’s 1968 assassination. But so many of his words still apply today.
“Conflicts are unavoidable because a stage has been reached in which the reality of equality will require extensive adjustments in the way of life of some of the white majority,” he wrote. “There is no discernible will on the part of white leadership to prepare the people for changes on the new level.”
Today’s politics are just as defined by ethnicity as they were in 1966, though roles have changed. The Republican Party, which gave us Abraham Lincoln and the fight against racist oppression, today opposes efforts to expand voting and economic…
