[US] King Decries Widespread U. S. Poverty

from The Tyler Morning Telegraph

By: RHIANNON MEYERS, Staff Writer

As a country with an inordinate amount of wealth, America should be embarrassed that it has a poverty problem, Martin Luther King III told a group gathered at The University of Texas at Tyler on Friday.

He said it's ridiculous that there are 36 million Americans in poverty and 40 million without health insurance. The son of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. said that America has failed its children and its poor.

"It would make God wonder, why should He bless us?" King said.

Every American deserves a decent job, pay, health care and shelter, and that's possible if government officials would start listening to the needs and wants of the average citizen and not lobbyists, he said.

"We've come so far, but we are a nation in trouble and we must answer a question posed by Martin Luther King Jr. years ago ... 'Where do we go from here?'" King said.

In a speech sometimes broken by applause, King urged Americans to carry on his father's legacy of nonviolent action to promote a beloved society of brotherhood and sisterhood.

American society has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go to rid the nation of King Jr.'s three proclaimed evils - racism, violence and militarism, King said. America's priorities have been misplaced - there's more money, but more disparities; bigger homes, but broken families; more years in a life, but less life in a years, King said.

He calls it his father's dream deferred.

He urged Americans to stop being complacent and to start valuing education; something-popular culture does not promote for young people. America's education system needs to be revamped and refunded so that the No Child Left Behind Act can mean just that, King said. If education doesn't change, American children will be left behind in the emerging global marketplace.

Some may think eradicating poverty is a utopian idea, but the same was said of the American Revolution, ending slavery and the 1960s civil rights movement, King said. He said his fight against poverty is an extension of his father's poverty initiatives that were interrupted when he was killed.

"In 2006, if the situation was the same and he was still living, I would imagine he would be trying to help us eradicate this thing called poverty," King said in a press conference.

King was 10 when his father was gunned down April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn. King recalled how he and his siblings watched the news coverage of his father's assassination and then asked their mother about it. She told them their father had gone to meet God, he would no longer be able to hug and embrace them and that the next time they saw him, he would look like he was resting peacefully. It was the most traumatic experience of his life, King said.

Four days after King Jr.'s assassination, Coretta Scott King led a demonstration her husband could not attend - it was a prime example of her devotion to furthering her husband's message, Mrs. King's mission until she died in January, her son said.

The next months after King Jr.'s assassination were hard on the children, King said in a press conference hours before his speech. Officers accompanied the family everywhere and the media followed them to school as the King children were the first in their area to integrate. King said he was forced to grow up fast.

The first of King Jr.'s sons, King has made it his life mission to help his mother promote his father's legacy. He's president and CEO of the King Center in Atlanta, an organization that promotes King Jr.'s six steps of nonviolent action and conflict resolution through training and informational materials.

He promotes father's ideas of loving the enemy to bring about change. It doesn't take masses to make a difference, only a few good women and men, King said.

In response to a question, King said the immigration issue is an example of the civil rights movement legacy in today's culture. Hispanics and Latinos are facing the some of the same issues blacks faced in the '60s, he said in response to a question from a Boulter Middle School eighth-grader at the press conference.

King applauded the mobilization of Hispanics in recent weeks, calling it a just action toward the immigration policies that are unfair and unjustly harsh on "brown people." An immigration policy needs to be sane and sensible - allow illegal immigrants to become citizens and participate in society but don't punish them with felony charges for trying to make an honest living, he said.

"America has a way of trying to make things racist when they're really not," he said in the press conference.

Racism was, and is, prevalent in the Hurricane Katrina media coverage and government response, King said at the press conference. He said that funds have been allocated to rebuild New Orleans and help displaced victims, but nothing is being done and he can't understand why.

"That's the strangest thing I've ever seen," King said. "I've never seen a community destroyed by a natural disaster and eight months later, there's no change. The community is still devastated. It's like no one is doing anything and no one seems to know why."

King said that the nation lost several civil rights leaders in the past year, including King's mother and Rosa Parks, and he hopes that their legacies will continue to be embraced.

In response to a question about the war in Iraq, King said he doesn't know what his father would have wanted, but he imagines he would have been against the war, much like he was against the Vietnam War. The nation's policies toward other countries, especially its stance on Iran's nuclear weapons, are hypocritical and America cannot command respect until it obeys its own laws, King said. He said that perhaps if his father were alive, America would not be embroiled in a war.

Too many American dollars are spent on defense initiatives and not enough is being spent on improving America's health care, education and poverty problems, King said.

He urged everyone to become informed and vote - it's the only way to gain a true voice in society, he said.