Weve fought the civil rights battle over the years. Weve done many electrifying things...[A]ll of these were great movements. They did a great deal to end legal segregation and guarantee the right to vote. With Selma and the voting rights bill one era of our struggle came to a close and a new era came into being. Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know now that it isnt enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesnt earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee? What does it profit a man to be able to eat at the swankiest integrated restaurant when he doesnt earn enough money to take his wife out to dine? What does it profit one to have access to the hotels of our city and the motels of our highway when we dont earn enough money to take our family on a vacation? What does it profit one to be able to attend an integrated school when he doesnt earn enough money to buy his children school clothes? And so we assemble here tonight, and you have assembled for more than thirty days now to say, We are tired. We are tired of being at the bottom. We are tired of being trampled over by the iron feet of oppression. We are tired of our children having to attend overcrowded, inferior, quality-less schools. We are tired of having to live in dilapidated substandard housing conditions where we dont have wall-to-wall carpets but so often we end up with wall-to-wall rats and roaches. We are tired of smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society. We are tired of walking the streets in search for jobs that do not exist. We are tired of working our hands off and laboring every day and not even making a wage adequate to get the basic necessities of life. We are tired of our men being emasculated so that our wives and our daughters have to go out and work in the white ladys kitchen, leaving us unable to be with our children and give them the time and the attention that they need. We are tired. And so in Memphis we have begun. We are saying, Now is the time. Get the word across to everybody in power in this time in this town that now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of Gods children. Now is the time for city hall to take a position for that which is just and honest. Now is the time for justice to roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. Now is the time.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 12:02:56 +0000
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