40 years later, MLK son focuses on father's fight against poverty

from the Fort Mill Times

By WALTER PUTNAM

ATLANTA — Forty years after his father's assassination, Martin Luther King III is carrying the anti-poverty banner that led the civil rights leader to Memphis on behalf of striking sanitation workers.

King, chairman and CEO of the non-profit Realizing the Dream Inc., called Thursday for national leaders to try to end poverty, just as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference sought to do through the Poor People's Campaign of 1968.

An op-ed column by King III in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution urged the presidential candidates to pledge that - within the first 100 days of office - they will appoint a cabinet-level official "whose responsibility will be to make a measurable impact on eradicating poverty and allow more Americans to move up into our middle class."

Later in Washington, King met with House and Senate leaders for a special observance marking Friday's 40th anniversary of his father's assassination in Memphis. He said he told them about the op-ed piece as a reminder that the rate of poverty in the U.S. is the same as his father found so appalling in 1968.

"If we are serious, and if we can bail out a corporate entity like Bear Stearns to the tune of about $30 billion, then certainly we can identify enough revenue to address poverty in America," King said in an interview after returning to Atlanta.

"We have demonstrated, in my judgment, that we are not serious about poverty," he said. "We kind of dilly-dally around about it."

King said there were about 25 million Americans classified as poor 40 years ago, and now there are 36 million, including 12 million children. With the increase in population, that is around the same percentage as 1968, he said.

"It doesn't appear that a dent has been put in it at all," King said. "With the economy being what it is, it is going to get worse before it gets better."

He said his organization had sent letters to the campaigns of John McCain, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, asking them to make the commitment to create a cabinet-level anti-poverty official.

"We expect very shortly to hear some response," he said.

King said he was uncertain what emotions he would confront on Friday.

"For the first time in my life, I am going to be in Memphis on the anniversary," he said.

King said he and his sister, Bernice, would visit their parents' tombs in Atlanta, then travel to the Tennessee city, where they would participate in "a march of recommitment" and make remarks at the Lorraine Motel, the site of their father's assassination, which is now a civil rights museum.

King said he sees more interest than ever in public service and issues such as civil rights and poverty, particularly among the young, and he attributes it to the presidential election.

"What I sense is young people, because of the election year and cycle, having an interest," he said. "And maybe because of the candidacy of Mr. Obama, and Sen. Clinton as well.

"I have not seen the enthusiasm and excitement that I have seen over the last year," King said.