In a turbulent decade, Dr. King’s generation completed the task started by the Brown decision. But their celebration was brief. They realized that civil rights legislation, as difficult as it was to get passed, was actually the easy part. America wasn’t going to change overnight.
At this point a growing impatience among the rank-and-file led to dissension. There was a rejection of non-violence, a new demand for “Black power,” and riots broke out in the cities. And to make matters worse, the White House promised a war on poverty, but the only war waged by the White House was in Vietnam.
The King generation reached a mid-movement crisis. They had to redefine their purpose. This is when Dr. King’s youth caught up to him. Internally, Dr. King probably grappled with the question: What do we do now? And once he worked it out in his mind, he gave a speech in 1967 called, “Where do we go from here?”
Dr. King began by citing statistics to show the state of Black America in 1967. The disparities he emphasized are similar to the disparities Black activists denounce today. Dr. King’s prescription for poverty was a guaranteed annual income. (Nowadays it’s referred to as universal basic income. It has support on the left and right.) Then Dr. King spoke about psychological freedom. He made it clear Black Americans had to be able to admit, “Yes, I was a slave through my foreparents and I am not ashamed of that.” Then Dr. King discussed power. He said Blacks have been “stripped of the right to make decisions concerning their lives and destiny…subject to the authoritarian rule and sometimes whimsical decisions of the White power structure…Now power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose.”
But what if the biggest problem today is a poverty of purpose?
Now, repeat King’s last question: Where do we go from here?
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