Fifty years after his assassination, America is still wrestling with understanding the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Though history now venerates him as a beloved and peaceful figure, at the time of his death, he was one of the most hated men in America. For all the persistent claims that America is a country built on equality and liberty for all, the idea of civil rights and dismantling white supremacy was deeply unpopular with a majority of whites.
But racial equality was not enough for King, who began to see interlocking systems of oppression that needed to be rectified. Thus, during the last years of his life, he attempted to broaden the conversation on civil rights—not only demanding an end to racial inequality but also organizing poor whites and other marginalized persons around issues of poverty, employment, housing and militarism. In 1967, he worked with other civil rights leaders around the country to develop the Poor People’s Campaign, which was designed to “dramatize the plight of America’s poor of all races and make very clear that they are sick and tired of waiting for a better life.”
While all of King’s life and work are important to revisit on this historic anniversary, it is this work, in particular, that seems most relevant to examine closely in 2018. In the era of Donald Trump, discussions about the white working class and their economic anxiety, an increase in white supremacist hate groups and several historic racial and social justice movements, it’s time to ask what has changed in America with respect to racial equality and what is the future of the movement work that King championed so vigorously. And, to do that, there is no better place to start than the city of Memphis, Tennessee—the very place that King was murdered on April 4, 1968.
This week in Memphis, the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis participated in MLK50 commemoration ceremonies at the National Civil Rights Museum and around the city. They are the co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival which picks up the economic and social justice work began by King and others nearly five decades ago. Per its website, the point of the campaign in 2018 is to:
“[unite] tens of thousands of people across the country to challenge the evils of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation and the nation’s distorted morality.”
The campaign has 12 fundamental principles, which focus on improving society for the most impacted by systemic and social injustice—specifically people of color, women, the poor, LGBTQ persons, immigrants, workers, the disabled and the sick. They are working with organizers around the country to launch 40 days of nonviolent action in Washington, D.C., and state capitals. On Tuesday, Daily Kos had the opportunity to speak by phone with Theoharis from Memphis about the Poor People’s Campaign and what it means for America today.
When asked about how the campaign is different from its start in 1968 and why it’s important to organize people around these particular social justice issues, Theoharis said this: “If we look at where we are today, things are worse for people than they were in 1968. We have ecological devastation reeking havoc, fewer voting rights, mass incarceration, more people impacted by poverty. Yet, we are not talking about it in this way or coming across lines that are dividing us. But if we can do that and organize and show that we are serious about digging deep, we can create change. It is more important for people to come together because our problems are deeper and wider than ever. In times of moral crisis, people have always come to answer the call to make things better for everyone.”
Sadly, Theoharis is right. Though it’s easy to believe that so much has changed in the past 50 years, a recent report from the Economic Policy Institute reveals that there have been almost no changes for black people in America when it comes to home ownership, unemployment and incarceration rates. Studies also show that by 2053, the median wealth for black households will fall to zero. And that’s not all. Things are dire across the board. The poorest people in America are women and children. And in the richest country in the world, the poor often face issues of food insecurity, especially in places like Memphis.
Daily Kos asked Theoharis what the Poor People’s Campaign means for women, particularly in the context of the Me Too movement and broader societal conversations about sexual harassment and abuse. She was clear that connections can be made between the abuse of women and the other kinds of oppression we see in society. “70 percent of the people who are poor are women and children. Women are still making cents on the dollar for same jobs as men. It’s no surprise that women (especially the marginalized and poor women) experience harassment and abuse, because we live in a society that degrades life—especially the lives of women, people of color and queer people. Those of us who are the majority (the ones who are harassed and abused), we can see connections between violence against Native peoples, blacks, immigrants, queer, women—it’s all connected. It is the very same people who are oppressing us all. That’s why we need to organize across lines.”
As Theoharis and the Poor People’s Campaign point out, the kinds of structural violence that they seek to transform are interconnected. Poverty, militarism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia—they are all perpetuated by the same structures and people in power. And they are demonstrable in the segregation and poverty in Memphis, where the city is 64 percent black and 35 percent of households have food access issues.
To learn more about food access issues in the city, Daily Kos spoke by phone to Dr. Kimberly Kasper, an assistant professor of anthropology at Rhodes College in Memphis. Part of Kasper’s research focuses on food systems and inequality in the Memphis area. She, too, sees a link between policies and a system that keeps people in poverty and hungry. Kasper says she believes that King would be horrified by the lack progress when it comes to food justice in America and in Memphis today.
“Memphis is one of the most obese, yet hungriest cities in America. … In my work with students, we started out looking at Southern food waves, plantation systems and how commodity farming started. But students quickly became interested in food access issues. We are a city of 35 percent SNAP/EBT households and 25 percent of students are food insecure. My students could see and understand the historical trajectory of how this happened, but also wanted to do something about it.”
This desire to do something led to the start of a farmer’s market on campus in 2012 since there were not a lot of affordable options for fresh and local fruits and vegetables in the city, followed by the first on-campus community garden. However, students quickly discovered that because the campus is gated, they would need to move the farmer’s market in order to bolster community access. Thus, they moved the location twice—first to a nearby church and then to Overton Park, a 300-plus acre public park in the middle of the city.
Still, results were mixed. Though the city is majority black, they discovered that roughly 82-92 percent of people frequenting the farmer’s markets in Memphis overall were white, which means that communities of color in the city are still not accessing local foods and produce at the rates of their white counterparts. And farmer’s markets are opportunities for building community, interacting with local farmers, places to get educated about food and nutrition and can actually be more cost-effective (the farmer’s market that Rhodes students work with offers a produce membership where customers can get bags of vegetables for $10). However, Kasper recognizes that there are multiple reasons for why Memphians of color aren’t accessing these spaces.
“There are many Memphis families that have a deep tie to agriculture. But there’s also been historical inequality tied to where people access food, where supermarkets pop up and are no longer, and very often communities (particularly those that are low-income) have been left out of the conversation. In our work, we are trying to be inclusive in conversations with local granting agencies and the USDA. We have a grant looking at issues of food justice and food access and are working with local and SNAP communities on these issues.”
The direction Kasper and her students are now taking is multifaceted since they realize there are different systems at work. For instance, they began accepting SNAP benefits at the farmer’s market, which resulted in an increase in people using SNAP benefits to buy food. They also make sure to consistently look at their vendors and ask if they are including local farmers, bakers and other members of the community. They are also asking more specific systemic-level questions about whether or not food insecurity can be solved through local food movements. Kasper says that looking at the role of chain grocery stores, multinational corporations, city government, local and national policy is all part of understanding the larger food system as a whole.
In the fall of 2018, Kasper plans to co-teach a new course with a colleague, Ashanté Reese, who teaches at Spelman College in Atlanta. The course is called: Just Food: Race, class and gender in the US Urban South. Students in both cities will be exploring issues of food justice in their respective cities but also looking at food and its connection to churches, the community and the civil rights movement. A multi-year grant-funded project, eventually their findings will go into a food justice exhibit for the National Civil Rights Museum.
For Kasper, this is a way of building on the legacy began by King.
“It’s time that there’s more conversations about the role of food, not only on the social and food justice side, but how it binds us together. Memphis has a rich culinary history but its been overlooked on the national and regional scene, besides barbecue. Along with the anniversary [of Dr. King’s assassination], this is a timely space in which we can start having these conversations to bolster the work he started in the 1950s and ‘60s. We are trying to rebuild and resuscitate that.”
On this historic day, many are asking what King would have thought about the time period we are in and what comes next. In fact, the title of his final book was Where do we go from here? And it’s a critical question to ask. While we don’t know what King would have thought about the time period we are in, we do know that his life’s work left us some idea of how to continue to fight for justice in the days, months and years ahead.
Theoharis offered this reflection on how to move forward:
“The message from 1968 wasn’t completely clear. We hold up Dr. King, but the movement consisted of thousands of people coming together, thousands of leaders. … Sometimes how we look at history doesn’t serve us today. King was very unpopular and certain people, the ones doing the oppressing, are using him as an example to stand against the very kind of organizing he would be doing 50 years later. He was deeply connected in struggle and willing to do unpopular things. As we think about the life he led, that was cut short 50 years ago, we would do well to look at what he was saying. In the last year of his life, he said the poor of all races must come together. That still rings true today. Uniting and organizing the most impacted by injustice—including clergy, activists, individuals in a broad-based movement with a lot of leaders. Including the folks whose names we know and those who we don’t. That’s how we can take up what he was doing and use that work to inform our movements.”
While King continues to represent many different things to many different people, the struggle for equality and dignity for all people continues. And half a century later, his message of a movement uniting the poor and most marginalized of all races and identities and seeing those movements as intersectional, still remains our best hope for progress and a better world in 2018.
To sign the pledge for the Poor People’s Campaign and learn more about their nonviolent moral direct actions across the country, click here.