John Edwards for President-Edwards: Dream is Fading; Former Candidate Honors MLK with Call to Fight Poverty

Edwards: Dream is Fading; Former Candidate Honors MLK with Call to Fight Poverty

Jan 17, 2006 9:00 AM

Chante Dionne Warren
Baton Rouge Advocate
Jan 17, 2006

The ideals and dreams of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. are being forgotten, former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards said Monday.

"The great moral issue is the 37 million people in our country who live in poverty," Edwards told about a thousand people attending Monday's service for King at Mount Zion First Baptist Church on East Boulevard. "How can we turn our backs on 37 million people who had to beg for health care?"

Edwards, who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina, cited a "void in moral leadership in America" and criticized the federal government for reducing spending on health-care and child-care programs, such as Head Start, that benefit the poor.

"Let's stand up in the tradition of King and fight against poverty and for moral leadership in America," he said.

The annual program's theme, "Baton Rouge, Our City — Running the Race, Keeping the Pace," commemorated the birth and vision of King with a three-hour program featuring music, dance and speeches. It culminated with about 1,800 people marching to the River Center Plaza downtown where another program was held, said the Rev. Betty Claiborne, chairwoman of the MLK Committee that coordinates the program and parade.

King, who would have turned 77 Sunday, led a series of nonviolent demonstrations during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s which earned him the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. He was born Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta and died in 1968 in Memphis, Tenn.

Edwards, who started a poverty center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, has traveled throughout the United States — including to Baton Rouge following Hurricane Katrina — and to poorer nations studying poverty.

Stereotypes that label poor people as lazy are a lie, he said. What Edwards found on his visits were regular people, often single women, raising large families and working at several low-wage jobs.

"We need to give these people a chance," Edwards said. He said New Orleans victims who lost their jobs and homes as a result of Hurricane Katrina should be the recipients of the billions in federal aid that is instead going toward corporations.

"The country saw the face of poverty in America, and largely it's a face of color," he said. Edwards said he hopes New Orleans is not rebuilt as a racially segregated city.

AFL-CIO executive vice president Linda Chavez-Thompson also said the country has a moral obligation to make life better for laborers.

"We are still struggling and fighting for decent wages throughout the country," Chavez-Thompson said.

Mayor-President Kip Holden said the parish faces challenges to confront homelessness and to transition hurricane evacuees out of trailers. "East Baton Rouge Parish shall rise to the fulfillment of our true nature. I truly believe we shall overcome one day."

This year's Trailblazer Award winner, Martha White, was honored for helping organize and carry out the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott.

"In 1953, the movement that shook America was birthed out of this woman," Claiborne said. "We want to thank you for the stand you took and for your bravery."

Area ministers from several religions also spoke and lit candles signifying "the flame of infinite hope." The Rev. Robin McCullough Bade said Hurricane Katrina helped unify churches.

"Walls between churches, denominations and religions came tumbling down," Bade said. "We in the faith community came together."

Hundreds of young marchers helped lead the procession along Government Street. Many were members of high school bands, youth leadership clubs and youth ministries. The march was a first for Jasmin Hughes, 14, who joined other members of the Feliciana Youth Institute, a church-based program.

"It feels good because I have the freedom to be doing this," Hughes said.

The march inspired Ashleigh Williams, 15, also a member of the Feliciana Youth Institute, to show the community that young people still care about King's ideas and dreams.

"It's an honor to be marching today the way the civil rights workers once had in the 1960s," Williams said. "It's showing how we still care about what Dr. King did."