[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 4]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 5183-5184]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




 RECOGNIZING THE 43RD ANNIVERSARY OF THE DEATH OF THE REV. DR. MARTIN 
                            LUTHER KING, JR.

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS

                              of maryland

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, April 5, 2011

  Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor the memory of the Rev. Dr. 
Martin Luther King, Jr. and to deliver a message from those of us who 
were young in Dr. King's time.
  We cannot honor Dr. King without recalling the difficult and unfair 
world that he set out to change.
  And we do not honor him by pretending that no civil rights challenges 
remain to be overcome.
  It is also critical that we recall how well Dr. King understood that 
the challenges of civil rights and economic injustice are inextricably 
intertwined.
  He understood that working people--of every background--are too often 
in a struggle just to survive.
  Forty-three years after that tragic moment in Memphis, Tennessee, 
Americans of good conscience are still in an economic struggle for 
fundamental human dignity--and we are still in a national debate 
regarding what kind of nation ours will become.
  And, in this ongoing struggle, Americans of Color are not alone in 
having our fundamental human rights denied.
  According to an October 2010 report released by the Congressional 
Research Service, 3.7 million more persons fell below the poverty line 
in 2009 compared to the number below the poverty line in 2008.
  These 3.7 million people were pushed into poverty and left to suffer 
the consequences of a recession they did not create.
  As a result, in 2009, a total of 43.6 million people had incomes 
below the poverty line--more than at any time since we began tracking 
this measure in 1959--9 years before Dr. King's death.
  Within that figure, one in every five children in this country lived 
in poverty in this nation in 2009. This is a staggering and shameful 
figure.
  Mr. Speaker, far too many Americans are being subjected to the most 
crippling segregation of all: the segregation from hope that is the 
inevitable result of poverty.
  On the anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, we recall that he was 
struck down in Memphis while he was supporting a sanitation union's 
struggle for a living wage.
  Dr. King understood that the struggle of workers to win their rights 
is part of the continuing struggle of labor for opportunity.
  More than 40 years after Dr. King's death, this struggle continues--
and the victories won years ago are at risk perhaps as never before.
  Many are seeking to tear down American workers' most fundamental 
rights and to undo the advances that paved the paths that have carried 
so many to the middle class.
  As we see that struggle unfold, I urge us to remember what we are 
fighting for.
  As Dr. King often observed, the civil rights objectives of our time 
are not limited to the struggles of Black people or of any minority 
group.
  Rather, we are engaged in a peaceful struggle to advance the human 
and civil rights of ALL AMERICANS.
  Our mission--Dr. King's vision transported into our time--is to 
transform the ``human rights'' of all Americans into civil rights 
protected by law.

[[Page 5184]]

  We are fighting, as our colleague and friend Congressman John Lewis 
has observed, for the rights that will enable all Americans to have 
jobs that provide them ``the opportunity to realize their full 
potential as individual people.''
  At a time when many low-wage jobs do not pay enough to enable a 
family to make ends meet, and at a time when people can work 40 or even 
50 hours a week and still fall behind, we honor Dr. King's struggle by 
continuing his fight to create a just society where every person can 
fulfill the potential God has given to them.
  And we continue that fight by ensuring that the hard-won rights of 
working Americans are seen as inviolable and as essential to the 
success of our entire nation.
  I urge every American to join this fight.

                          ____________________