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.”
The views expressed here and on Rising Up With Sonali do not necessarily reflect the opinion of YES! Media.
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Sonali Kolhatkar
is currently the racial justice editor at YES! Media and a writing fellow with Independent Media Institute. She was previously a weekly columnist for Truthdig.com. She is also the host and creator of Rising Up with Sonali, a nationally syndicated television and radio program airing on Free Speech TV and dozens of independent and community radio stations. Sonali won First Place at the Los Angeles Press Club Annual Awards for Best Election Commentary in 2016. She also won numerous awards including Best TV Anchor from the LA Press Club and has also been nominated as Best Radio Anchor 4 years in a row. She is the author of Bleeding Afghanistan: Washington, Warlords, and the Propaganda of Silence, and the co-director of the nonprofit group, Afghan Women's Mission. Her forthcoming book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights, 2023). She has a Master’s in Astronomy from the University of Hawai’i, and two undergraduate degrees in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin. She reflects on her professional path in her 2014 TEDx talk, “My Journey From Astrophysicist to Radio Host.” She can be reached at sonalikolhatkar.com
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