MLK
On MLK holiday, a renewed push to address poverty, voting rights: ‘We cannot be silent or unseen.’
Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, used the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday to demand the president and congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle meet with poor and low-wealth people and religious leaders to address the policy decisions that have held millions of Americans in poverty. “Sadly, many will go […]
On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, no one should settle for ‘a piece of freedom’
Some historians mark the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s murder as the end of the civil rights movement. Over an arc of 14 years — from the 1954 Brown Decision to King’s death in 1968 — the nation attempted to address its racial caste system. The same nation that launched a war on hunger and […]
MLK Day Monday numbers: The battle to preserve American democracy
In the decades since it became a national holiday, Martin Luther King Day has served as a vehicle to lift up a number of causes that Dr. King himself championed – from racial equality to ending poverty to world peace. Today, however, as we mark what would have been MLK’s 93rd birthday, events have rendered all those causes (and many others of great import) secondary to an overriding imperative: the preservation of our democracy.
At MLK alma mater, Biden pitches Senate rule change to safeguard voting rights
President Joe Biden called for an end to the Senate filibuster during a visit to Atlanta’s Morehouse College campus, arguing Senate Democrats can push past GOP opposition now blocking major voting rights legislation. The visit by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris to Atlanta was the latest sign of Georgia’ central role as a battleground state...
Republican praise of Martin Luther King will sound even more hollow and hypocritical now
There’s a long list of Republicans who ought not part their lips this holiday weekend to praise Martin Luther King Jr., to quote from his most famous speech or suggest in any way that they know anything about content of character. That list includes the 138 Republicans in the U.S. House and the six Republicans […]
Editorial blasts Lt. Gov. Forest for “spreading falsehoods” and “passion for divisiveness”
Plenty of people have already stood up to condemn North Carolina Lt. Gov. Dan Forest’s latest bizarre and outrageous comments about Planned Parenthood, but this morning’s lead Capitol Broadcasting Company editorial on WRAL.com does a particularly good job. Forest, as you will recall, brought his special knack for uttering absurd claims (years ago, he claimed […]
Veteran journalist: Why we should heed MLK’s message to “be an agitator”
In case you missed it, there was an on-the-money commentary posted over the weekend by longtime NC Policy Watch friend and all-around great American journalist, Hedrick Smith about Martin Luther King, Jr. Smith, who covered King during his lifetime and who later went on to serve as the Washington bureau chief for the New York […]
Remembering MLK on April 4: Fifty years later, workers are still exploited
Everyone knows that fifty years ago today, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, just one night after giving his famous “I’ve been to the mountain-top” speech. What many people don’t know is that King was in Memphis that week not for a civil rights rally or event, but to support a […]
Remembering MLK on the 50 year anniversary of the Memphis garbage workers strike
Cross-posted from the good folks at the AFL-CIO of NC: February 1 National Moment of Silence On February 1, 1968, Memphis sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker huddled in the back of their truck to seek shelter from a storm. Suddenly, the truck’s compactor malfunctioned, trapping Cole and Walker and crushing them to death. […]
Remembering the real MLK
As conservative politicians like Gov. Pat McCrory dutifully troop to public platforms all over America today to laud Martin Luther King, Jr. and his accomplishments from the safe distance of 46 years, the good folks at Think Progress have posted a couple of articles this morning that remind us of some facts that are unlikely […]