I was honored when Joe Lauria, the new Editor in Chief of Consortium News, asked me to write about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the 50th anniversary of his assassination. In King's Legacy Betrayed I point out a very sad truth.
Black people in this country are worse off, by every measure, than we were in 1968. We have fewer living wage jobs, a 700% increase in the prison population, the destruction of the social welfare state and the resurgence of United States imperialism. All of these setbacks were deliberate and were intended to undermine the gains of the liberation struggle.
By the way, 700% is no typo. When King was alive the total number of incarcerated persons was just 300,000. It is now more than 2 million.
Margaret Kimberley
