Yes!, August 30, 2023, How To Realize Dr. King’s Dream, 60 Years Later
It’s been 60 years since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. King noted that Black Americans live “on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”
While there have been gains made since 1963 on the question of closing the racial wealth gap, there is still a long way to go. A new report released jointly by the Institute for Policy Studies and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition finds that without policy interventions, it could take African Americans more than 500 more years to achieve economic parity with whites.
Dedrick Asante-Muhammad, chief of race, wealth and community for the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, spoke with YES! Racial Justice Editor Sonali Kolhatkar on Rising Up With Sonali about persistent economic inequality along racial lines. Asante-Muhammad is also the lead author of a new report, “Still a Dream: Over 500 Years to Black Economic Equality.”
