News Hits visited last week's big Voices for Action Poverty Summit at Cobo to catch a rousing speech by Martin Luther King III.
The son of the slain civil rights leader did not disappoint, delivering a message equal parts outrage over economic injustices that have "families wading through the high waters of pending foreclosures" and hope that springs from believing our nation's "ability to do good in the world is boundless."
Certainly our circumstances are daunting. About 37 million people in the world's richest nation live in poverty. Here in Michigan, one in five people live at or near the poverty level, some 500,000 of them children.
King talked movingly of how his father and mother must be looking down at the results of the presidential election beaming with elation. But we're still fighting two wars, and there is still much work to be done if we're ever to achieve anything approaching widespread social justice. And it's up to all of us to do that work: "America needs more than a great president to realize my father's dream. What America needs is a great America."
News Hits is edited by Curt Guyette. Contact him at 313-202-8004 or [email protected]
