Reflections on Dr. King's
Demands for Food Justice
As we reflect on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his legacy of Beloved Community Building this month, we are serving up food for thought shared by others, including Dr. King himself.
Dr. King's dream for the United States of American and for people worldwide was rooted in a belief that poverty was a human-constructed problem and a refusal to believe that "the bank of justice is bankrupt." Although most people primarily associate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with civil rights, racial equality, nonviolence, and voting rights, he also believed that the bank of justice had sufficient funds to nourish all people. Beyond advocating for charity, he critiqued systems that produced violence (including hunger and poverty), making the connection between poverty in American cities and global war.
In his own words:
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (12/10/64)
Dr. King's acceptance speech for the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize was significant in that it solidified nonviolent resistance as a global, moral, and practical tool against oppression, elevating the American civil rights struggle to an international human rights issue. He proclaimed that "unarmed truth and unconditional love" would prevail and he accepted the award on behalf of the entire movement, a "mighty army of love" engaged in a "creative battle" to "establish a reign of freedom and a rule of justice." In his words:
"I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down men other-centered can build up. I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive good will proclaim the rule of the land. I still believe that we shall overcome!"
See: nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/king/acceptance-speech/
In the following year, he developed a relationship with the Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh and continued to deepen his understanding of the connection between the violence of global wars and local poverty. They became Brothers in the Beloved Community. This week we also honor the four year anniversary of the passing of Thich Nhat Hanh, on January 22, 2022 at the age of 95.
Food Justice Successes of
the Poor People's Campaign
In the last year of his life, Dr. King worked with many movement leaders to develop the Poor People's Campaign, which ultimately brought 3,000 activists to the nation's capital in May 1968 for more than 6 weeks to introduce policy solutions to poverty, including an economic bill of rights. The problem of hunger was core among them. But before the march started - and less than a month after Dr. King's assassination, Reverend Ralph David Abernathy visited the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on April 29th to talk about food and farming. As the Union of Concerned Scientists reflects, along with the list of demands he carried, Rev. Abernathy brought the voice many thousands of citizens—"including farmers who were denied land, families who were denied food, and people who were denied dignity."
Additionally, as a multiethnic crusade, The Poor People's Campaign succeeded in making the crisis of poverty visible through the the voices of America's poor - not just to legislators, but to the American public. In May 1968, CBS aired Hunger in America (Youtube), bringing awareness of poverty and hunger into American homes. The program focused on poverty in four regions of the country: a Latino community in Texas; a white community in Virginia; a Native American reservation in Arizona; and an African American community in Alabama. The documentary’s portrayal of poverty’s effect on children moved Americans to write their representatives and demand the government provide assistance.
To read more about the policy changes they set in motion, see: