"...There are millions of poor people in this country who have very little, or even nothing, to lose. If they can be helped to take action together, they will do so with a freedom and a power that will be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life..." -- The Trumpet of Conscience, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, 1967

It is no accident that the last years of Martin Luther King, Jr's life are the least discussed and least understood. In the final period of his life, King determined that what had been a movement for civil rights must become a movement for human rights targeting global poverty including its 'downsizing' and devastating impact on the lives of huge population sectors of the world's richest country, the United States of America. As many of King's former allies abandoned him, and as repression against King and the movement increased, King set about a building a "non-violent army of the poor" to set up an encampment in Washington DC during the spring of 1968. This effort would lead to his assassination. During a little publicized trial in December 1999, his assassination was determined not to be the work of a 'fanatical racist' but the coordinated effort by officials at many levels of the government, involving local intelligence and police, the FBI, CIA, and Military Intelligence. (see the Official Transcripts from MLK, Jr Assassination Trial at www.universityofthepoor.org - Library section)

The Poor People's Campaign, which was the major priority of King's final years, was about organizing and uniting the poor across racial lines in the United States, and ultimately internationally. King understood that the deep moral and political crises of his time - racism, war, social inequality -- were, and still are, ultimately rooted in an economic system which deprives millions of the right to a decent life. After the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 he realized that, "We have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights, an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society… this means a revolution of values among other things. We see now that the evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism are all tied together… you can't really get rid of one without getting rid of the others…" - Talk at a May, 1967 SCLC Staff Meeting

"A multi-racial nonviolent army, or freedom church of the poor" would be constituted as "a new and unsettling force" capable of awakening the thinking and conscience of the American people from all walks of life who would then "lift the load of poverty" with the more than sufficient productive means already at hand. More than thirty years later, King’s words are still prophetic: "There is a fire raging now for the…poor of this society. Disinherited people all over the world are bleeding to death from deep social and economic wounds. They need brigades of ambulance drivers who will have to ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved." - The Triumph of Conscience

King spoke of the need and possibility of the United States "living out the true meaning of its creed" that all of God’s children are created equal and are endowed with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is the soul of America the redemption of which he committed himself. Freedom and happiness mean nothing without the economic human rights to decent housing, adequate healthcare and food, a job at a living wage, and quality education. The tremendous productive capacity and abundance of the United States today make the absent of these things for increasing millions immoral and unjust. In building a movement for economic human rights led by the poor as a united and organized force, we are building the means necessary to reclaim the best of our country’s most basic values and morals.

The Kensington Welfare Rights Union, a multiracial organization of poor and homeless families, took up the banner of economic human rights five years ago and began documenting economic human rights violations across the United States. We have found that our own stories as poor, homeless, and underemployed families in Philadelphia are repeated every day across this country. We have found that there truly is a fire raging in our country today, a fire whose intensity has been stoked by three decades of massive downsizing, welfare reform and other cutbacks in social programs, by automation, globalization, and an economy which has created a new class of people of all races who increasingly are permanently denied a right to the most basic necessities of life.

We have felt and witnessed this fire raging - from Kensington, North Philadelphia, where homeless, unemployed families sleep inside abandoned factories and where thousands of jobs are gone and are not coming back; to Kansas, where farmers are being thrown off of their land because they cannot compete against large agri-business; to Flint, Michigan, where automation of the automobile industry followed by the loss of jobs to the NAFTA left hundreds of thousands of people with no jobs and crumbling housing; to Florida, where farmworkers can barely afford to eat the food they pick; and to Idaho, where families who have been laid off live in tents along the river in one of the coldest places in the United States.

As we have traveled the United States to build the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, we have seen the desperate need for "brigades of ambulance drivers" to unite to put out this fire which is killing our children, our brothers and sisters, our fathers and mothers, and which threatens to spread and envelop our whole society if we do not act now. We need to get serious about building leaders among the poor and uniting the people of this country behind a banner of economic human rights for all. We see, as Dr King saw, that our country and our world need to be "born again." And so we have taken up the legacy of Dr. King and adapted it to our current political and economic situation.

Like King, we see that the fire raging today demands that we ignore the red lights of the present system -- such as unjust laws that force us to sleep in the streets in front of empty houses, as well as the red lights which tell us we can't march on public streets when we know that our voice is the only thing that will save us; the red lights that tell us to be patient and wait; the red lights that tell us that we are unrealistic and that poverty can't be ended, even when we have more than enough to go around. We are following in the footsteps of Dr. King by using non-violent civil disobedience, including housing takeovers, marches of thousands of people, and a recent tent city on Market Street in Center City Philadelphia, in which 12 homeless people, including 6 children, were arrested for fighting for affordable housing.

The Poor People's Campaign of 1968 went to the places no one wanted to go and organized thousands of poor people, uniting the poor of all races from both rural and urban areas -- and politically educating them to build a "non-violent multiracial army of the poor." King knew that the future of our society is bound up with the fight of the poor for their freedom from want and misery. The essence of King's life and legacy is a deep conviction that a new society is possible, and that this new society is only possible through a massive movement involving people from all walks of life, a movement founded on the unity and organization of the poor of all colors. The Kensington Welfare Rights Union and the Poor People Economic Human Rights Campaign are determined to concentrate all of our energies and resources to continue this most urgent and morally necessary struggle to which the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. dedicated and gave his life. We call on all to do the same.