Bix dot Blog

On July 30, 1967, less than a year before a bullet from a white supremacist assassin’s rifle would end his life, Dr. King came to County Hall in Charleston, S.C., for a speaking engagement. The visit occurred during the “Long Hot Summer of 1967,” as race-related riots broke out in cities across America, including Plainfield, N.J., Minneapolis, Minn. Detroit, and Milwaukee, just to name a few. King was in Charleston to talk about his Poor People’s Campaign, specifically about the “Freedom Budget,” an economic agenda he thought could solve poverty in America. The “practical, step-by-step plan for wiping out poverty” called for a basic universal income, housing, education reform and a jobs plan. King insisted the revolutionary idea could wipe out widespread poverty in 10 years and many people still believe this radical plan is the final straw which resulted in his death.

—Michael Harriot, in “Martin Luther King Jr. Talks Reparations, White Economic Anxiety and Guaranteed Income in Previously Unheard Speech”