King spent a long period in isolation, living in a rented residence in Jamaica with no telephone, composing the book.[1][2]
It later lapsed out of print until
Vincent Gordon Harding and a foreword by King's wife, Coretta Scott King. The revamped version was highlighted as a 2011 University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries and recommended for use in teaching.[1][2]
Contents
King gives a speech in 1964.
One of the central themes of the book's messages is that of
Civil Rights Movement. He discusses the question of what African-Americans should do with their new freedoms found in laws such as the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He concludes that all Americans must unite in order to fight poverty and create an equality of opportunity. King emphasizes that he is neither a Marxist nor a doctrinaire socialist; he instead advocates for a united social movement that would act within both the Republican and Democratic parties.[1]
Establishing a clear contrast between his own views and that of the
U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, and he asserts that radical change is still not only just but necessary. The then ongoing Vietnam War represents, in King's eyes, an immense waste of resources as well as a distraction from pressing domestic issues, the cost in lost lives making it all even worse.[1]
In
guaranteed income
:
I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective—the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the greatest organic intellectuals in American history. His unique ability to connect the life of the mind to the struggle for freedom is legendary, and in this book—his last grand expression of his vision—he put forward his most prophetic challenge to powers that be and his most progressive program for the wretched of the earth.[2]
King's argument for a
basic income system to improve the U.S. economy and statements against wealth inequality have been cited by a wide variety of later publications. Examples include academic and economist Guy Standing's 2014 book A Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens and professor P.L. Thomas' 2012 book Ignoring Poverty in the U.S.: The Corporate Takeover of Public Education.[3][4] The revamped 2010 version of King's work was highlighted in a 2011 University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries, and was recommended for use in teaching.[2]
