King and Social Justice

After the civil rights bill was passed, King turned to focus his energies on deeper problems with American society. We don't heat about these efforts as much because, I think, they are more difficult to solve and lie closer to our core cultural values. He spoke of poverty and worker's rights and criticized America's use of violence in the world. And he urged us to turn away from a consumer society to a people centered society. These two articles say all this much better than I can, so read itsgettinghotinhere.org and FAIR.

Some might say that King is often co opted by many different causes for social justice, and that is as it should be. In fact he stood for many causes and cared about deeply about them all. We have thus far applied temporary bandages (civil rights act, endangered species act, Americans with disabilities act, EPA regulations, etc) to try and fix a bleeding cut. That wound continues to bleed injustice, however indirectly. Are we going to keep adding bandages or are we going to heal the wound?