Portside

Despite important strides that the United States has made toward racial equality in the 60 years since the March on Washington, we have yet to address the persistent poverty and unemployment that turned Martin Luther King’s dream “into a nightmare.”

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Resolving the conflict between being visionary and being pragmatic is critical for those who want to transform society. Can we be both visionary and strategic?

It was not the failures, but the victories of PUSH that taught Jackson the most crucial of political truths: No amount of private successes could transform a public system working against the interests of poor and working people.

The fact that Black Americans are still fighting the same battles against voter suppression, inequality and the right to have a dream almost 54 years after his death is the most accurate measure of what this nation thinks about Martin Luther King.

King spent his last birthday organizing poor people of all races against immoral spending priorities. We need that revolution today.

Throughout his adult life, Martin Luther King Jr believed in striking down not only racial apartheid but class exploitation. That twin commitment was embodied in his final effort: the often-forgotten Poor People’s Campaign.

Violence has not produced justice anywhere. We must build a nonviolent movement in the 21st century that advances a multi-racial democracy that has never before existed in the United States.