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Carrying Rev. Dr. King's Dream Forward-
Happy MLK Day from NSO; we wish you a prosperous day and challenge you to make the day as impactful as possible as we remember the dream that Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. strived toward many years ago. It is because of his work and dedication to making our world more equitable for all that organizations like ours can operate and thrive.
King was unwavering in his efforts to ensure African Americans' and minorities' civil rights, among those being the right for every individual to have access to quality healthcare and safe, accessible, and affordable housing. Dr. King stated, "Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." and that "almost two-thirds of the people of the world go to bed hungry at night. They are undernourished, ill-housed, and shabbily clad. Many of them have no houses or beds to sleep in. Their only beds are the sidewalks of the cities and the dusty roads of the villages. Most of these poverty-stricken children of God have never seen a physician or a dentist."
Dr. King knew that human lives were at stake because of these injustices in housing, health, and well-being in our country and around the world. He maintained an unwavering commitment to equity in healthcare, economic security, and housing rights for the millions of minorities and low-income Americans. King worked to dismantle systemic racism stating, "we know that systems will not change the rule; we are going to have to change the system."
Among the many accomplishments of Dr. King, a few of the notable were:
- Providing a tremendous influence and laying the foundation for the passage of the Fair Housing Act of 1968, prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, disability, or family status.
- Ensuring the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, ending segregation in public places, and banning discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.
- Initiating a campaign to end discrimination in housing, employment, and schools in Chicago.
- Announcing that the Poor People's Campaign will culminate in a March on Washington demanding a $12 billion Economic Bill of Rights in an attempt to guarantee employment to the able-bodied, income to those unable to work, and an end to housing discrimination.
- Influencing the Medical Committee for Human Rights, which helped the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.
- Encouraging the passage of the Social Security Act, which created Medicare and Medicaid, brought federal funding into every hospital and medical institution in the United States, forever binding each facility to the Civil Rights Act, a stipulation of which was that any organization receiving federal funding could not discriminate on the basis of race.
Although much progress for fundamental rights has been made because of Dr. King's dedication, his dream still needs to be fulfilled. NSO continues to carry the dream of Dr. King forward until it is fulfilled and ego the world of Dr. King in saying, "I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education, and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits."
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