In 1964, in the wake of a President's assassination, the nation finally addressed one of the most undemocratic aspects of its character. Civil Rights had been denied to people of color for centuries. Martin Luther King courageously held the nation's feet to the fire, and shamed it into finally trying to do the right thing, and put into law what already was in the Constitution.
Segregation and racism formed the bedrock of many state's legal and moral hierarchy. Economic and social injustice were the norm and not the rule.
This took such absurd forms, that the Southeast Conference did not allow African-American athletes to play. Today, the SEC is the premiere football conference in the land and African Americans play.
In short, this is a direct example that equal opportunity brings the best to the top. In the sixties, Alabama for example, purported to be the number one football team in the country, while teams like Michigan, U.S.C. and the like, competed with African American athletes. SEC Conference teams would not play integrated teams, buy they still held claim to number one status, playing white only teams.
In 1970 this changed. Alabama played U.S.C. and got annihilated! At that point, six years after the Civil Rights Act, Bear Bryant finally gave in, and Alabama began to recruit African Americans. Now this was several years AFTER African Americans were allowed to attend the University. Old bigotry died hard, but the SCORE counted.
Today, Dr. King's crusade is still not complete. The Great Recession has affected minorities more dramatically than the majority. However, poverty is colorblind, as Dr. King so notably remarked. There are far more poor whites than people of color. Misery knows no color line!
Poverty is growing like a cancer in the land. It destroys children most of all, relegating them to a lifetime of need, while dooming the rest of us to the constant debate about welfare and how much to do for the needy.
It is here where we need the words of Dr. King the most. He warned us about the corrosive effects of poverty,how it saps the nation's strength and weakens us. Today, parents have taken in their adult children in record numbers, from the poor to the middle class, in desperation.
And we debate! We debate the size of the deficit. We argue about how much welfare, if any is enough. Conservatives use the recession to somehow prove that welfare creates a class of lazy do-nothings, liberals use the recession to prove that capitalism doesn't work.
And meanwhile we do nothing for the economic injustice that is going on all around us. The homeless are ignored, or pushed from one place to the next. The shame of it.
For sure, this injustice is no longer supported by segregationist law; that is gone. For sure, governments cannot discriminate, nor can the private sector.
Unfortunately, poverty is not so amenable to law. Poverty comes from a variety of sources and is too highly complex to be "attacked". It is not a thing. It is not a country, or even a terrorist group.
Poverty is a condition, a consequence, a social and economic phenomenon that requires everyone's attention and dedication.
Poverty truly tries our resolve, our commitment, and yes our Christian values. I don't have an easy answer, and neither do my conservative "friends". It is not any easy thing to fix. Johnson's "War on Poverty" was doomed because it greatly underestimated its foe.
But that is not an excuse to do nothing. Dr. King called us to the great crusade, the great effort, to eradicate poverty from our country.
Let us begin, let us continue, let us never give up. I had a dream, and it can come true.
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