• Martin Luther King Jr. is often invoked by conservatives in their campaign against modern-day anti-racism concepts.
• King’s speeches had more lines than just “content of character and not the color of our skin”.
• King wanted a significant redistribution of economic resources to create a society of equals.
• King’s ideas were superior to what is being pushed by both modern-day DEI devotees and their critics.
• King wanted real access to the ballot, not just a requirement that voter suppression measures be facially race-neutral.
• King wanted to generate meaningful economic opportunities, which is why he launched the Poor People’s Campaign.
• Martin Luther King Jr. wrote an introduction to Bayard Rustin’s “Freedom Budget” in 1966, a plan for massive government-led investment to eradicate poverty and generate full employment.
• King’s vision was for improved public services, an enhanced welfare state, and a robust commitment to full employment.
• King argued that the civil rights movement needed to go in the direction of “class struggle” and “redistribution of economic power” in order to achieve true justice.
• King was not advocating for “colorblindness” but rather for solidarity and a powerful doctrine of solidarity.
• King was asking for nothing more or less than what is promised in the nation’s founding documents and celebrated in its monuments.
Published January 16, 2023. Visit Slow Boring to read Matthew Yglesias’s original post [Martin Luther King Jr.’s push for material redistribution]
