“Change the wind, transform the debate, recast the discussion, alter the context in which political decisions are being made, and you will change the outcomes.” Jim Wallis, God’s Politics
In 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stopped by the White House for a meeting with President Lyndon Johnson. King had just been honored with the Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership role in securing the Civil Rights Act. Wallis relates in God’s Politics how King told the President that obtaining a voting rights act was the next step on the road to freedom for black Americans in the South as that would enable them to change their communities.
Johnson said it would be 5 or 10 years before that would be possible because he had called in all his political “chits.” King knew they couldn’t wait so he started organizing in a little southern town called Selma, Alabama.
And then Wallis said, “On one fateful day, King and the SCLC leaders marched right across the Edmond Pettis Bridge, alongside the people of Selma, to face the notorious Sheriff Jim Clark and his virtual army of angry white police.”
The winds changed that day. And in 8 minutes and 46 seconds they changed again in Minneapolis when a white policeman knelt on George Floyd’s neck and choked the life out of him while 3 other policeman stood by and did nothing to stop him despite Floyd’s cries that he couldn’t breathe and despite the pleas of onlookers to stop.
Why am I writing about this in a financial column? Because financial Inequality encompasses every aspect of our lives and we cannot, absolutely must not forget that as we fight for systemic change in America. Regardless of our ethnic background, our age, our sex, our religious and our political preferences, it behooves each of us to educate ourselves about racism and inequality and to do what we can to right the wrongs that are stalking this land.
What role will you play in righting these wrongs?
Blessings on your efforts to take the “In” out of “Inequality,
Judy Osgood
June 8, 2020