The civil rights issue for the 21st century _ the wealth gap

[wildflower]

NEW YORK (AP) - Activists say it's going to be the civil rights issue of the 21st century.

Forty years after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and decades after Martin Luther King Junior made strides in racial equality, the racial line that divides America today is made of money.

Civil rights advocates preparing to celebrate King's birthday today say economic equality will be an overriding issue in the continuing struggle.

Despite the strides made by King and others, fewer blacks than whites own their houses, get fair loans, invest in the stock market, sit on corporate boards, or have any real control over the flow of investment dollars.

One expert says the widening wealth gap is reversing gains made in other areas over the years.

(short article; found it at http://www.newswatch50.com/news/national/story.aspx?content_id=554C29AE-E601-4677-83E9-77ED6ADDAFDB)

ON EDIT: Found longer story at CNN international:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/01/17/wealth.gap.ap/

[hiley]

1. Civil Rights is econmic too

"There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech 1964


On January 17th, America honors the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Before his death in 1968, King began plans for the Poor People's Campaign.http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/ The aim of the campaign was to organize people, across racial divides, to lift people out of poverty through significant changes to the domestic economic policies of the U.S. One of the policy prescriptions of the Poor People's Campaign was an end to poverty wages. Honor the memory of Dr. King today by calling for an increase in the minimum wage!http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/movingideas/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=326

this is email from Moving Ideas here is a little more....
An increase in the minimum wage would help millions of low-income workers. Experts estimate that 7.4 million workers' wages would increase if the minimum wage were to increase. In particular, an increase in the minimum wage would help African-American and Latino workers. Our friends at the Economic Policy Institute report that:
http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/issueguides_minwage_minwagefacts

A disproportionate share of minorities would benefit from a minimum wage increase. African Americans represent 11.1% of the total workforce, but are 14.8% of workers affected by an increase. Similarly, 13.1% of the total workforce is Hispanic, but Hispanics are 18.9% of workers affected by an increase.



An increase in the minimum wage is long over due! Tell your members of Congress that a person who works 40 hours a week should not live in poverty!
http://www.demaction.org/dia/organizations/movingideas/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=326

[wildflower]

2. Absolutely. Thank you for those links! n/t

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

3. Yeah, we can work on that, just as soon as weathermen don't

call people coons on TV

and everyone can marry whom they want.

[hiley]

4. Can you explain exactly

what you mean, please ?


There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it. There is no deficit in human resources; the deficit is in human will."
(((((Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech 1964 ))))

:)

[hiley]

5. had not seen

this thread yet..http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1157838

This weatherman (idiot) is shameful.

[Demeter]

6. Before You Worry About Waelth, Think Voting

If your vote hasn't got equal weight, you are not equal. And it doesn't. Fix the voting, and watch what happens to the economic opportunity and the tax burdens.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

7. Good point.

[Ranec]

8. Wasn't this the progressive issue of the 19th century

Economic inequality and the excesses of the super wealthy--I see so many parallels between now and the turn of the last century.

I was just reading about the election of 1912, and how Teddy Rosevelt had been instrumental in a great age of reform. The "trust busting" days that defeated what was entrenched coporate power. He ran for president for a third term (as a Bull Moose) because he felt his fellow Republicans were not suffficiently in favor of reform.

Woodrow Wilson won that election on a platform that included a call for internationalism and progressive reform.