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Whenever I hear the political argument that, to win, we need to abandon this or that part of the state or country, I think about the people I've met all over Missouri, my time teaching, a speech of Dr. King's, and an older black man I heard in North St. Louis County.
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When Dr. King sat in a Birmingham jail cell in 1963, he spoke to the white guards. He listened to the guardsâ criticism of the marches, their arguments supporting segregation. Dr. King talked to them âcalmly,â he said, because they wanted to talk.
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When tempers were flaring throughout the country, in a place where one person was a prisoner and the other his state-empowered captor, these people from opposing sides sat down and talked. Eventually, the guards told Dr. King where they lived and how much they made.
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âAnd when those brothers told me what they were earning, I said, âNow, you know what? You ought to be marching with us. You're just as poor as Negroes.â And I said, âYou are put in the position of supporting your oppressor, because...
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...through prejudice and blindness, you fail to see that the same forces that oppress Negroes in American society oppress poor white people. And all you are living on is the satisfaction of your skin being white...
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...and the drum major instinct of thinking that you are somebody big because you are white. And you're so poor you can't send your children to school. You ought to be out here marching with every one of us every time we have a march.â"
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53 years later, I was in North St. Louis County for a Democratic township meeting. An older black man, who had been listening to speakers talk about how winning in Missouri meant needing to let rural Missouri go, raised his hand.
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He stood up and said, "I don't understand. The rural parts of the state have the same problems we do right here. Why can't we get all of these people together?"
There wasn't a good answer. The belief that it couldn't be done meant it never would.
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There wasn't a good answer. The belief that it couldn't be done meant it never would.
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Months after, I was in Pemiscot County in the Bootheel, the poorest county in Missouri. I asked what the big issues in the area were.
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They said vacant and dilapidated homes, a struggling education system, ongoing segregation, and a lack of jobs and opportunity - the same things I'd heard teaching in North St. Louis City for over a decade.
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This was Dr. King's last effort: Bringing all of America together in a campaign to end poverty, to protect workers, to end inequity of opportunity. He was murdered because of it. And we as a country never finished the work.
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Now, in 2020, our national pundits call poor white people "working class" and poor minorities... well, not much, really, until that group comes in handy for election coverage or some other 24-7 media addiction.
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You don't win just by getting your person elected. You don't win by ignoring those with the least in favor of those who can fund you the most.
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You don't win by showing up once to a black neighborhood just to say you did, to tokenize a group of farmers because it looks quaint for the suburbs on a campaign video, to take money from minority communities but abandon them when it's time to do the work.
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We win by building the America we know we can be and that our children need it to be. That's real work. It takes sustained, hard effort. Years and years of it. Highlighting those who have already been doing it and getting them the support they need.
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I am sick to my stomach about what we've done to the People of Missouri, the divisions we have created, the refusal to stop perpetuating them, and our unconscionable failure to ensure we all have a voice in our government.
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This is our home.
We need to stand up for it.
We need to give and build local.
We can't wait for someone else to come and do it.
That's what it means to Take Back Missouri.
17/17
We need to stand up for it.
We need to give and build local.
We can't wait for someone else to come and do it.
That's what it means to Take Back Missouri.
17/17
