On January 15, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was leaving a planning meeting for the Poor People’s Campaign when he was called back into the room. It was his birthday — his last, it would turn out.
Xernona Clayton teased, “We know how fond you are of our president Lyndon Johnson,” which got a laugh. Then she pulled out a metal cup engraved: “We are cooperating with Lyndon’s War on Poverty. Drop coins and bills in cup.”In 1968, the Vietnam War was costing billions while the War on Poverty fell to the side, like spare change in a cup. Today too,
As a Christian ethicist who studies King, I think it’s important to remember that he spent his last months organizing a campaign of the poor to challenge political priorities like these. Although King was assassinated before the campaign launched, the Poor People’s Campaign went forward in the spirit of King’s words from the year before, when he challenged the idea that coins in a cup were enough.
Truthout Yes and wealthy Republicans use racism to keep poor and working class divided.
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