Dr. King and the continuing silence
Martin Luther King Jr. day, 2010.
Most Americans do not know of Dr. King’s strong endorsement of guaranteed income, and on this day when we commemorate his birth most of the invocations of his life ignore that aspect of his legacy. An internet search on”Martin Luther King” and “guaranteed income” yields a few blog posts and a couple of stories in fairly small publications.
There were several more prominent articles that talked about his campaign to end poverty, though none of them said anything specific about guaranteed income. Here are a two examples by writers who mention his book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? and must therefore know about the guaranteed income, though they don’t mention it.
A piece by Dedrick Muhammad in CommonDreams.org.
A piece by Sam Fulwood in the online magazine The Root.
Here’s a piece that has a nice title, “Martin Luther King’s other dream: Economic justice for all.” It’s by John Gehring and is on the Washington Post website, but nothing specific about King’s book or guaranteed income.
Perhaps next year this aspect of King’s legacy will receive more attention.
Steven Shafarman