Throughout our entire county, homeless individuals are being arrested for illegally camping. I remember clearly when those arrests and evictions began here. An old law that had been passed in the 60s was used. Myself and other activists began to fight it, and what we uncovered was alarming and opened my eyes to a nearly forgotten chapter in the life and legacy of Dr. King. In the late 1960s, he had begun to reshape the scope of his vision toward addressing poverty. He started to speak of the Poor Peoples Campaign as a reality, and a list of demands was sent to Congress. The fight was aimed at creating an economic bill of rights, picking up the mantle of President Roosevelt. Before his death, he had proposed a Second Bill of Rights. He based his philopophy for this on the idea that our country promised the, pursuit of happiness as a guiding principle. He considered employment with a living wage, healthcare, housing, food, education, and even vacations, as fundamental rights. This hope died with him. However, Dr. King took this idea and expounded upon it. He promised to march the poor to Washington and set up a tent city that could not be ignored. Cities across the south, and up through the corridor leading to the Capitol, began to pass anti-camping ordinances to prevent the caravans from passing through their towns. Before this dream could become a reality, Dr. King was struck down in Memphis. Many leaders in the Civil Rights Movement attempted to move forward with the campaign, and took it to Washington, Resurrection City was built, but it ended in disaster. The campaign could not gather the support that it needed, the National Mall would not give permits, and eventually the camp was cleared by police. The pleas for economic justice fell on deaf ears in congress, and they realized that without the leadership of Dr. King, it was an easy fire to stomp out. These anti-camping ordinances lay dormant in many communities, until one by one many cities began enforcing them. Soon, towns without such ordinances began copying them and passing them, seemingly unaware that with each arrest and eviction, they were using laws invented to silence the newest dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. With each arrest of the poor, with every eviction of a homeless encampment, our country is spitting in the face of one of our greatest visionaries. He mapped out a solution, and laid a plan out of poverty for us, but we as a nation are still not listening. Had he not been gunned down, poverty and homelessness as we know it today would likely not exist. Had he succeeded at this campaign, as he had with desegregation, Congress may have moved forward on an economic packet that would have revolutionized the way we respond to home loss, mental health, unemployment, veterans, and issues of human dignity. Instead, we know live in a time with laws created to silence Dr. Kings Poor Peoples Campaign being resurrected to harm those he wished to protect. I can think of no greater way to honor his memory than for us all to band together to continue in his quest for justice by seeking to put an end to imprisoning people based solely on their economic status, to have those laws unwritten which were placed simply to silence and hide the suffering of the poor by placing them in jail cells. Each time a person is arrested after begging for help or seeking unconventional shelter, let it be known that a solution has already been put forth, a path has already been made straight, but that the final dream has yet to be realized. True justice is found in the bosom of equality. Let us pick up that flame today, and march on with hope in our hearts that there will be freedom from oppression, and comfort to those who suffer. Then, we can truly be free at last.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 05:48:51 +0000