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Below is a transcription of a speech given by History Department Chair, Julie Ransom during MS and US assemblies.

Raise your hand if you have heard some or all of Martin Luther King鈥檚 鈥淚 have a dream鈥� speech. Today I want to share a different perspective on something Dr. King said at the beginning of that speech.

[Black people] live on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity . . . . When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men鈥攜es, black men as well as white men鈥攚ould be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. . . .¹

Did you notice Dr. King鈥檚 metaphor about a lonely island amid wealth and the way he connects banking terms like a promissory note to the pursuit of happiness? He鈥檚 talking about poverty. Most of us are familiar with Martin Luther King鈥檚 involvement in the Civil Rights movement. But many people don鈥檛 know about his campaign against poverty鈥攁n important focus for him in the last 10 years of his life.

If Dr. King had not been killed in 1968, he planned to lead the Poor People鈥檚 March on Washington D.C.. He announced that year, We [will be] coming [to the nation’s capital]. . . to demand that the government address itself to the problem of poverty. . . . if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness…”²

You may have heard that Martin Luther King was killed later that year in Memphis Tennessee. But do you know WHY he was in Memphis? What was he doing there?

I want to answer this question with a story about garbage.

In Memphis, Tennessee in the 1960s, garbage collection was one of those city jobs that was absolutely essential, but also awful. And as with many cities in the south, racism shaped the city鈥檚 hiring practices. The garbage truck drivers and supervisors were all white, but the sanitation crew鈥攖he ones who lifted the heavy garbage cans by hand, were all black. These weren鈥檛 the sturdy plastic garbage bins you鈥檙e used to, these were old metal barrels, which often leaked all over, especially when it rained. The sanitation workers had to lift these barrels over their heads to dump the trash into the truck to be compacted. Then they rode on the back of the truck to the next stop because white drivers didn鈥檛 allow them to sit in the front. Sanitation workers came home exhausted, filthy, and smelling like garbage. All of this to be paid about $1 an hour鈥攁nd they weren鈥檛 paid anything if they had to work overtime to finish the day鈥檚 route.

The families of the garbage collectors lived in poverty. Many of them were former sharecroppers, who had hoped that they could escape the backbreaking labor of the plantations. But discrimination forced them into only the lowest jobs.³

Working conditions for these sanitation workers were exhausting, dehumanizing, and unsafe. They had no health insurance, no sick leave. The city had forbidden them from forming a labor union to negotiate for better treatment. If they tried to join a union, they were fired.

In Memphis in February of 1968, two Black sanitation workers鈥擡chol Cole and Robert Walker鈥攚ere crushed to death inside a malfunctioning garbage truck. Their wives and children were left with nothing, not even enough to buy caskets. 

In the week that followed the deaths of these two men, more than a thousand Memphis sanitation workers organized and went on strike. They marched through the city wearing picket signs. They asked the city of Memphis to give them decent wages, and safer working conditions. The Mayor refused to negotiate with them.

An iconic image from this strike is this sign 鈥淚 am a Man鈥� worn by hundreds of marchers. This motto was a way of humanizing the workers. Reverend James Lawson said to them, “For at the heart of racism is the idea that a man is not a man, that a person is not a person. You are human beings鈥� You deserve dignity.”⁴

The sanitation workers were on strike for several weeks. Civil Rights activists joined them in nonviolent protests. Martin Luther King went to Memphis to show his support. He led a march of thousands of workers and civil rights activists. 22,000 high school and college students skipped school to join in the march. When Dr. King spoke to the workers, he said to them, 鈥淵ou are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.鈥�⁵

Martin Luther King was a religious man鈥攁 preacher. In the last speech he ever gave鈥攊n Memphis鈥攈e drew from a Bible story about a Good Samaritan, a compassionate person who helps a stranger in need. Dr. King called this 鈥渁 kind of dangerous unselfishness.鈥� Dangerous because it requires personal sacrifice, even for a stranger, a kind of deep, humanizing compassion. Dr. King said, 鈥淲here others wonder  “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” the Good Samaritan came by. And he reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?”⁶

In Dr. King鈥檚 campaign against poverty and against unfair labor conditions, he talked about the root causes of poverty and how they affect real people of all races. Some of the causes of poverty at the time were low wages, unemployment, limited access to healthcare, and systemic discrimination in housing and education. 

Although we have made some progress in the 57 years since Dr. King鈥檚 death, these causes of poverty are still with us today, trapping families in cycles of economic instability. Stereotypes exist that suggest poor people should just work harder, but one third of all people in poverty in America are children. And the majority of adults in poverty already work full time jobs. The pursuit of happiness is still out of reach if basic needs like a home, fair wages, food security, and higher education are out of reach.

Poverty is a complicated issue. So today I simply invite you to begin by humanizing people who are less fortunate than you are. To be curious about them. To get to the bottom of stereotypes about them. To wonder why 35 million Americans live in poverty in a prosperous country. To wonder 鈥渨hat will happen to them?鈥� To do some google searches about the causes of poverty. To do what you can when opportunities arise, like our current Community Service winter clothing drive. And to think about adopting Dr. King鈥檚 doctrine of dangerous unselfishness.

1. King, Martin Luther Jr. 鈥淚 Have a Dream鈥� Speech, transcript from The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. www.gilderlehrman.org 鈫╋笌
2. King, Martin Luther, Jr. 鈥淩emaining Awake Through a Great Revolution.鈥� Eyes on the Prize (transcript: 鈥淭he Promised Land,鈥� 1967鈥�1968), WGBH Educational Foundation. 鈫╋笌
3. Burnett, Lynn. 鈥淭he 1968 Memphis Strike, Part One: The Garbage Workers.鈥� Cross Cultural Solidarity, Cross Cultural Solidarity,. Accessed Jan. 2026. 鈫╋笌
4. Lawson quoted in At the River I Stand. Directed by David Appleby, Allison Graham, and Steven Ross, California Newsreel, 1993. Transcript, Newsreel.org 鈫╋笌
5. 鈥淜ing鈥檚 Agenda for Working People Resonates 50 Years Later.鈥� AFL-CIO, 4 Apr. 2018, https://aflcio.org/2018/4/4/kings-agenda-working-people-resonates-50-years-later. Accessed Jan. 2026. 鈫╋笌
6. King, Martin Luther, Jr. 鈥淚鈥檝e Been to the Mountaintop.鈥� The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. 鈫╋笌