Another January brings us another day of celebrating the noble triumphs of the late Martin Luther King Jr. Unfortunately, five decades after the death of King, much of his dream has still not yet materialized.
In North Carolina alone, we still face some of the same issues that King championed solving. Racism is much less overt and pernicious than it was in the 1960s; however, it still manages to rear its ugly head in our current society. The now 55-year-old war on poverty, a fight which King carried on, also continues to roar on.
The most obvious grievance poor people and minorities continue to face in North Carolina are our restrictive voter ID laws. These laws have been assessed to be a superfluous barrier that prevents black people from voting and targets them with “surgical precision.” Despite drawing national criticism, the newest iteration of voter ID laws has made its way back to NC following a vote to add the laws to our state constitution in 2018.
While voter suppression may be the most familiar form of discrimination against vulnerable groups, it is certainly not the only means by which these groups are targeted. Environmental racism is yet another form of discrimination that has plagued poor people and minorities since King was alive.
Duplin County is currently embroiled in legal battles between some of its black residents and local hog farmers. The state has failed to provide the residents of this area adequate protections against the toxic emissions from these farms, and this has resulted in increased rates of “infant mortality, mortality due to anemia, kidney disease [and] tuberculosis.”
It is common knowledge that King advocated for an end to racist legislation, but a less well-known aspect of his life was his championing for the poor in America. Before his death, King created the Poor People’s Campaign to help liberate the working class in America.
Today, the working class find themselves in a position that is all too familiar — a time where inequality runs amok. In North Carolina, income inequality has passed levels of where it was preceding the Great Recession. The top 1 percent in North Carolina took home 17 percent of all state income in 2015. Households within the top 5 percent earn incomes that are 15 times as large as the average income of households in the bottom 20 percent.
Economic problems are only exacerbated for minorities within our state. Unemployment rates for black workers are twice as high as for white workers.
When adjusting for race, the picture of wealth inequality becomes even gloomier. In 2010, about 48 percent of minority residents lived in asset poverty while only 17 percent of white residents did. Even more alarmingly, a study conducted by the University of North Carolina found that half of all black households in N.C. had savings of less than $100.
Black family wealth pales in comparison to white families in our state, and that gap is only growing. The wealth gap between white and black households increased from $20,000 to $95,000 between 1984 and 2007. For every dollar in wealth white North Carolinians have, black residents own a measly 13 cents.
This is not to say that all efforts of creating the image of the America that King had in mind have come to a complete halt. In fact, a resident of North Carolina, the Rev. William Barber II, has revived MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign to revitalize the national discussion around wealth inequality. Already, Democratic candidates running for president in 2020 are attempting to embody some of the principles King preached, but it is up to us citizens to provide them a platform to enact any change.
Instead of just remembering Martin Luther King Jr. for what he wanted to accomplish, we should remember his visions as goals that we can and should bring forth ourselves. As the wise leader once said himself, “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.” And so, we must continue in our struggle to create a more righteous society, just as King sought out to do decades ago.
