On January 24, 2019 as part of OSU’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration, students, faculty, staff and community members came together at the HSRC for Economic Justice: Carrying Forward Dr. Kings Poor People’s Campaign. In addition to providing access to basic needs resources, the HSRC also serves as a community space for dialogue around social justice issues such as class(ism), poverty, and food insecurity.
Participants of Economic Justice spent the afternoon sharing a meal while discussing the lasting relevance of the Poor People’s Campaign and its guiding values. The Poor People’s Campaign was a movement organized in 1968 by Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The campaign brought together multiracial poor and working class people to advocate for the “abolition of poverty” through the creation of an Economic Bill of Rights. The proposed Economic Bill of Rights included: a meaningful job and living wage for every employable citizen, a secure and adequate income for all who cannot find jobs or for whom employment is inappropriate, access to land and capital to secure full participation in the economic life of America, and for people to play a significant role in determining how government programs are designed and carried out. Source: https://www.crmvet.org/docs/68ebr.htm
Dr. King and campaign organizers called for a mass mobilization of an “army of the poor” to Washington D.C. to engage in nonviolent civil disobedience and petition the government to take action towards eradicating poverty. Tragically, Dr. King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, a day after he marched for economic justice with striking sanitation workers in Memphis. While Dr. King’s vision of “a radical redistribution of economic power” was not realized, 50 years after his assassination, the “evils of racism, poverty and militarism” remain as relevant today as they were then. Our group discussed the vision laid out in Dr. King’s Economic Bill of Rights, and updated it to reflect the needs of today.
Economic Bill of Rights for 2019
- Free/Universal Education
- No borders/requirement of citizenship to access rights
- Universal healthcare
- Access to mental health care and time to self-care
- Give program power to people for whom the government is working for
- Those most affected should have the right to determine how assistance programs are designed and administered
- Votes for prisoners
- Redistribution instead of “access”
- Extra-low income housing/access to good housing
- Meaningful jobs should be beneficial for humans and the ecosystem
- Universal Basic Income
- Political processes
- Who determines what is “meaningful” and “adequate”?
- Job should be expanded to calling/vocation/passion
- Access to land as a means of livelihood=unplugging from capitalism
Specific to OSU
- Increased funding for higher education from the state so students don’t feel the blunt of tuition
- Lower tuition and book costs
- Having accessible and environmentally friendly course materials
- Universal meal plans
- Free housing
- Cap top administrators salary to a percentage of average employee salary
- Students have a real seat at administration table
- Freedom to teach/to express speech that critiques government and OSU
- Livable wage for all faculty (specifically adjunct faculty)
- Instructors treated like real employees-not second class
- Unionization and organization beyond labor lines
- More community gardens
In the poor people’s campaign, King advocated for nonviolent direct action that pushed America toward a social revival of morals grounded in love. He believed that systemic injustice and exploitation dehumanized people, both the oppressed and the oppressors, preventing them from truly loving each other. He understood that by expressing love through acts of nonviolent resistance to specific structural injustices–we are ultimately practicing love by eradicating systems that prevent people from seeing each other as fully human.
In order to realize our hopes and dreams for a more just future and society, our group discussed and shared actions we can take today to carry forward Dr. King’s values of racial and economic justice.
Actions for Carrying Forward the Poor People’s Campaign
- Organize poor people as an equal partner in our community
- Welcome folx into the womxn & gender space by putting on events about self-care and love
- Engage more with others by talking, smiling, hugging, etc.
- Keep an eye out for individual suffering & work to support the victim more
- Vote in local elections
- Choose a committee on campus to bring the voice of economic justice to the conversations
- Focus research on equity concerns
- Show up and lobby
- Be brave in teaching–ask tough questions, paint the big picture, challenge students to reflect on how they are now part of the problem and can be part of the solutions–despite precarity of employment
- Approach others with a mindset of charity (assume the best of others)
- Go outside more–more face to face connections
- #TrySocialism
- Listen to others with non-judgement and an open mind
- Share my wealth
- Volunteer to help those in need
- Be the change we want to see!
The issues of racism, poverty, economic inequality, and militarism are as much of an issue in 2019, as they were in 1968. An Economic Bill of Rights rooted in the values of Dr. King and the Poor People’s Campaign in needed now more than ever. Despite the injustice that persists today, people left feeling a sense of hope in what we can accomplish together as a collective.