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EDITORIAL: Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy continues

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We must bear witness to the hollowing of his prophetic words of liberation. The regressive sanitation of his messages emerge in the speech of those whose actions diminish the progress of the past and obstruct change today. The legacy of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. has been distorted to further antithesis goals of hate, injustice and inequality.

On Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence quoted King in an appeal for the administration’s push for congressional allocation of funding for a wall along the southern border. “One of my favorite quotes from Dr. King was, ‘Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy,’” Pence said. 

This appropriation of the words of a man who preached against divisive walls is an abhorrent manipulation of King. 

In September 1964, King visited a broken Berlin, accepting invitations from both sides of the Berlin wall. While among an unavoidable division among humanity, King gave a sermon in which he said “It is indeed an honor to be in this city, which stands as a symbol of the divisions of men on the face of the earth. For here on either side of the wall are God’s children and no man-made barrier can obliterate that fact. Whether it be East or West, men and women search for meaning, hope for fulfillment, yearn for faith in something beyond themselves and cry desperately for love and community to support them in this pilgrim journey.” 

In referencing the biblical book Ephesians, he said, “wherever reconciliation is taking place, wherever men are ‘breaking down the dividing walls of hostility’ which separate them from their brothers, there Christ continues to perform his ministry of reconciliation.”

From advertisements to statements of those who condemned Colin Kaepernick’s protest, the anti-war, anti-capitalist legacy of King has been neutralized to fit the mold of anyone who wishes to use his image.

During the movements of progress in the 1960s, King saw that the plight of the working class were interwoven with the struggles of persons of color. He recognized the potential for progress when economic pain was not used to divide, but rather unify behind a common purpose — a lifting up of all. His final project, which was left incomplete by his assassination, was the Poor People’s Campaign.

In a speech to the Illinois branch of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in 1965, King said, “Our combined strength is potentially enormous … If we make the war on poverty a total war; if we seek higher standards for all workers for an enriched life, we have the ability to accomplish it, and our nation has the ability to provide it.”

King had also said, “Negroes are not the only poor in the nation. There are nearly twice as many white poor as Negro, and therefore the struggle against poverty is not involved solely with color or racial discrimination but with elementary economic justice.”

The pervasiveness of this observed ubiquitous poverty remains the same today. There are approximately 14.5 million white Americans living in poverty, approximately 7.8 million Black Americans in poverty and approximately 9.1 million Hispanic Americans in poverty. 

There must be a rejection of the detrimental misuse of King’s words that empowered a movement. 


The Daily Targum's editorials represent the views of the majority of the 150th editorial board. Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff. 


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