Watch MLK Talks `New Phase` Of Civil Rights Struggle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xsbt3a7K-8) By the end of his life, Martin Luther King had expanded his political activities beyond the struggle for racial equality to include the suffering of the entire “underclass” – both black and white. He referred to this expansion as the Poor People`s Campaign. In this interview, he ties the quest for racial equality to the liberation of the poor. Answer the following questions in one sentence. 1. What unites the struggle for racial equality and the struggle for economic equality? 2. What does King mean when he talks about “to thingify”? (For class discussion only, you might think ponder the following additional questions: Have you ever felt “thingified” or found yourself in a position where you had that uneasy feeling of having to “thingifiy” someone else? If so, what was the context?) “…when white America tells the negro to lift himself by his own bootstraps, they don`t look over the legacy of slavery and segregation. Now, I believe we ought to do all we can and seek to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps. But it`s a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.” 3. What “yin-yang” sensibility lies at the foundation of the excerpt above? How might it capture the best of both conservatism and progressivism? 4. King discusses the integration of lunch counters and parks. He claims that these were the “easy” gains. What are the harder ones? Why are they harder?
