Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final focus leading up to his assassination 50 years ago was on poverty and economic justice. By winter of 1968, Dr. King and his organization were embarking on one of their boldest projects yet, a Poor People’s Campaign that would bring a multiracial coalition to the nation’s capital to demand federal funding for full employment, a guaranteed annual income, anti-poverty programs, and housing for the poor.
Announcing their new initiative, King said, “The Southern Christian Leadership Conference [SCLC] will lead waves of the nation’s poor and disinherited to Washington, D.C., next spring to demand redress of their grievances by the United States government and to secure at least jobs or income for all.” The idea for the Poor People’s Campaign had been sparked by Senator Robert Kennedy, in a simple message passed by Marian Wright, (later Marian Wright Edelman), to King months earlier. At the close of a conversation between Kennedy and Wright, the senator had said, “Tell Dr. King to bring the people to Washington.” – Drew Dellinger, The Atlantic, April 4th, 2018
Dr. King understood that if we can lift people out of poverty and provide equal opportunity for ALL it will be much harder to infringe on persons Civil Rights. He also understood that abject poverty crosses racial barriers, and today we see this across that nation pervasively. Those afflicted by abject poverty are also those that find themselves, all too often, on the wrong side of the law and are jailed and prosecuted at much greater rates than those with financial means.
And this is where we come in.
Our goal is the SAME as those that are fighting this fight on Capitol Hill BUT our approach is different! So…..You Ask…….What will WE do?……Well… THIS IS WHAT WE WILL DO!……..THIS IS WHAT YOU WILL DO….THIS IS YOUR FUTURE.
We Will Self Actualize…..We Will Raise Funds…..We Will Build The Schools…..We Will Assure Access To Legal Defense For Those Disenfranchised! WE THE PEOPLE WILL HEAL OUR NATION NOW! WE WILL EMPLOY TRICKLE UP ECONOMICS!!!
Our two point focused agenda for this event to help alleviate Civil Rights Infringement are:
- Vocational Youth and Adult Education Programs
- Provide information on current vocational schools
- Engage communities to learn how they can launch and fund their own successful programs such as https://www.guidestar.org/profile/52-0909347 http://www.childrensdefense.org/
- Work with industry to create vocational programs to put people to work…developing earn while you learn living wage programs!
- Enter your program or proposed program for future CUU specific events (send us an email with your idea)
- Abject Poverty Legal Defense Funds
- Provide information on current legal defense funds
- Engage communities to learn how they can launch and fund their own successful programs or how to utilize local/regional and national programs such as (http://www.childrensdefense.org/policy/justice) and (https://www.justice4all.org/civil-rights-racial-justice)
- Work with local legal minds to start up new programs to assist in legal defense, the attorneys may offer their services pro-bono or they may be paid….we will raise the funds to afford the best legal defense
- Enter your program or proposed program for future CUU specific funding events (send us an email with your idea)
And as part of our ongoing commitment to foster change we will have other events to fund specific community programs, you will be allowed to submit your program for consideration prior to, send us an email, and at this event, finalists will then be chosen at a later date and announced!