Martin Luther King is well known for his civil rights work, but before his murder King began to connect the fight for civil rights with conditions of poverty.
With yesterday being the 50th Anniversary of the Civil Rights’ march on Washington there has been quite a bit of media attention paid to the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. Undoubtly, much of the attention is paid to King’s famous “I have a dream” address, which hopes for a time when black and white folks an live together in peace. It censors its critique of the government, and sanitizes King’s censure of American culture, focusing on a dream, a hope for racial peace. However, as this brief segment of Henry Louis Gates Documentary “Two Nations” shows that King had connected the conditions of poverty, which he blamed on both government policy and American “work” ethic, to the oppression of black folks. King’s legacy, that is, was much more radical than our media likes to remember.
