"We need to apply action to the three areas Dr. King warned us about: poverty, racism and violence."

[Sapphire Blue]

King’s Dream Still a Long Way Away
by James Parks, Jan 12, 2007

Martin Luther King’s dream of a world in which everyone has economic opportunity and where violence is rare still is a long way away, according to a longtime civil rights leader.

In an electrifying speech that had an audience of more than 500 union activists standing on their feet, the Rev. Joseph Lowery told participants at the AFL-CIO annual Martin Luther King Day celebration in Houston:

“We need to apply action to the three areas Dr. King warned us about: poverty, racism and violence. Poverty is much too prevalent, and it’s spreading among working people,” Lowery said. “Racism is pervasive in our public policies and practices, and violence threatens to destroy us both from within and from without.”

Lowery, 85, was a close aide and confidant of King. He served 20 years as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the civil rights group King founded.

Lowery says the nation needs to recommit itself to the message of economic justice.

We’re entering an era when everybody must be fighting for civil rights. What was not on the national radar screen has exploded onto television screens. We know now that the faces of poverty are black, brown and white, painful and anguished. Let this nation rise up to eliminate poverty and make the faces of poverty vanish from the American scene.

http://blog.aflcio.org/2007/01/12/king%e2%80%99s-dream-still-a-long-way-away/

[Deja Q]

1. I wholly agree.

K&R

[bobbolink]

2. Words. Action.

Somehow we're no longer motivated to act.

Why is that?

[Sapphire Blue]

3. I can hear the drums in the distance.

They are getting louder every minute.

No longer will the elite tell us 'poverty is not a winning issue'.

The beat of the drums gets louder.

The beat of the drum is emanating from with you and me & millions of others like us.

We will carry on the dream... and make it a reality.