"The Negro also has to recognize that one hundred years after emancipation he lives on a lonely island of economic insecurity in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity . Negroes are still at the bottom of the economic ladder. They live within two concentric circles of segregation. One imprisons them on the basis of color, while the other confines them in a separate culture of poverty. The average Negro is born into want and deprivation . His struggle to escape his circumstances is hindered by color discrimination . He is deprived of normal education and normal social and economic opportunities . When he seeks opportunity, he is told, in effect, to lift himself by his own bootstraps, advice that does not take into account that he is barefoot ....
"Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation . They have deplored prejudice, but tolerated or a ignored economic injustice . But the Negro knows these two evils have a malignant kinship."
P.12-13, "The Negro Revolution --Why 1963?" WHY WE CAN'T WAIT by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964, 2000)
Thursday, August 27, 2015
WHY WE CAN'T WAIT
"The Negro also has to recognize that one hundred years after emancipation he lives on a lonely island of economic insecurity in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity . Negroes are still at the bottom of the economic ladder. They live within two concentric circles of segregation. One imprisons them on the basis of color, while the other confines them in a separate culture of poverty. The average Negro is born into want and deprivation . His struggle to escape his circumstances is hindered by color discrimination . He is deprived of normal education and normal social and economic opportunities . When he seeks opportunity, he is told, in effect, to lift himself by his own bootstraps, advice that does not take into account that he is barefoot ....
"Many white Americans of good will have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation . They have deplored prejudice, but tolerated or a ignored economic injustice . But the Negro knows these two evils have a malignant kinship."
P.12-13, "The Negro Revolution --Why 1963?" WHY WE CAN'T WAIT by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964, 2000)