Fifty years ago, in 1964, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Prize for his leadership in the Civil Rights' struggle. That movement's apex was reached in his "I Have a Dream" speech of the previous year. King (1963) intoned, I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. (p. 5) A half-century hence, the de jure restrictions on civil rights have mostly been excised (though with some disturbing recent attempts at reprising voter suppression), but the de facto reality of racial and economic discrimination remains. King understood that it would take more than opening the political system for all to realize his dream. In fact, King had another dream; one, which he saw as essential to achieving the goals of his signature "I Have a Dream" speech to advance civil rights. That other dream was to see that everyone should have a right to a living-wage job. As King expressed it in 1968, We call our demonstration a campaign for jobs and income because we feel that the economic question is the most crucial one that black people, and poor people generally, are confronting. (Pohlmann, 2003, p. 102) Contra employment policy of recent decades that has focused on education and job training, Bayard Rustin (organizer of the 1963 March on Washington) wrote, "The government [must] become an employer of last resort" (Kaboub, 2013, para. 6). King concurred with Rustin, and asserted, "We need an economic bill of rights. This would guarantee a job to all people who want to work and are able to work. It would mean creating certain public-service jobs" (King, 1968, p. 24). Some half-century later, we are now back to the very employment policy questions Martin Luther King demanded 802674S GOXXX10.
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