The upcoming March 4 Jobs will be another unfulfilled demand, unwritten chapter, and clear indication of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Poor People Campaign taking place in Pittsburgh starting this Sunday and up until next Friday. It will occur before the G-20 Summit, an international meeting where 20 countries — including America — from all over the world come together to discuss and deal with the Great Recession.
“One of the reasons we’re having this march”, states Sharon Black, “is that people really need to organize; the community groups have to be stronger.”
Black is one of the volunteer organizers for the Bailout People Organization, developed since President Obama’s inauguration and the first bailout of banks 18 months ago. Like the recent National People’s Summit held outside the National Business Summit in Detroit this summer, the march is both a protestation and demonstration of the G-20 Summit. And speaking of the National People’s Summit, they and the Moratorium NOW! will be representing the Motor City for this march.
“The city of Detroit, said Abayomi Azikiwe of Pan-African Newswire, “exemplifies the economic crisis in the United States. It goes back to decades; it’s a global problem. It’s a lot bigger than what’s going on down here.”
By decades, according to Abayomi, the problems started back in the late 1960s when King was in the development stages of his Poor People Campaign: shifting the focus from the civil rights movement in the South to economic justice in the North. When George W. Bush was elected for a second term as President in 2001, he used the money to financed the war on Iraq instead of using the money for jobs, education, health care, and so forth, which is the purpose behind both the National People’s Summit and the March 4 Jobs.
“We’re picking up before Dr. King was assassinated” Sharon said. “We’re picking that fight up, that demand for equality, right to a job, to live free of racism, to live with dignity. Unless people are marching, the only way to get real change is to start protesting and start organizing. We’re really trying to keep Dr. King’s legacy alive.”
