MLK Day 2009: Keep on Pushing

This Martin Luther King Jr. Day falls on the eve of the inauguration of the nation’s first African American president. The swearing-in ceremony will be held in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, where Dr. King shared his dream for America.

President-elect Barack Obama’s run for the White House does not mean the race for economic justice is over. In his “I Have a Dream” speech, Dr. King said:

One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we've come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

Forty-five years later, a black man will assume the mantle of “leader of the free world.” But far from a “vast ocean of material prosperity,” millions of Americans are drowning in a sea of debt.

While there has been undeniable racial progress, racial inequality persists.

Last week, United for a Fair Economy, a nonpartisan research and economic justice advocacy group, released a report, “State of the Dream 2009: The Silent Depression,” which quantifies growing economic inequality. The findings include:

Many American Blacks today are already experiencing a silent economic depression that, in terms of unemployment, equals or exceeds the Great Depression of 1929. Almost 12% of Blacks are unemployed; this is expected to increase to nearly 20% by 2010. Among young Black males aged 16-19, the unemployment rate is 32.8%, while their white counterparts are at 18.3%.

Overall, 24% of Blacks and 21% of Latinos are in poverty, versus 8% of whites.

Extreme economic inequality (which the U.S. experienced in the 1920s and is again experiencing now) is often a key indicator of recession and/or depression. The Black depression of today may well foreshadow the depth and length of the recession the whole country entered in December 2007.

A deep recession would see median family income decline by 4%. Thirty-three per cent of Blacks and 41% of Latinos would drop out of the middle class. The overall national rate would be 25%.

Yes, take a day on to celebrate the Drum Major for Justice. But Dr. King’s dream of economic justice is not yet realized.