For the first time, four of the five North County Churches Uniting for Racial Justice and Harmony’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Oratory Contest winners were part of the Ferguson-Florissant School District. The contest’s theme was “Dr. King’s Unfinished Business: Promoting Economic Empowerment.”
Wynter March, a sixth-grader at Combs Elementary School; David Kirkman, a junior at McCluer High School; and Kourtney Harvey, a senior at McCluer North High School, were invited to read their essays at the January High Achievement for All District-Wide Task Force meeting. The students and adult winner, RaShawn Johnson, a reading teacher at Berkeley Middle School, also presented their speeches last month as part of St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration. Winners received a $100 savings bond or gift certificate.
Here are excerpts from the winning essays.
From “Dr. King’s Unfinished Business: Promoting Economic Empowerment” by Wynter March
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew the path to equality was through economic empowerment, and so he encouraged people to open up bank accounts and purchase homes. He also promoted boycotts against racist companies, and promoted investment in black-owned businesses. Some say it was his move from politics to economics that provoked his assassination. Dr. King knew there could not be any real equality without economic security. Dr. King’s last speech was no job holder should have to live in poverty. These are some of the things that affect us today. One in three working families nationally are low income, and many of these working families reside in black communities. Martin Luther King once said, “Our needs are identical with labor’s needs – decent wages, fair work conditions, livable housing, conditions in which families can grow and have education for their children and respect in their communities.”
From “A Paradigm Shift” by David Kirkman
It seems that part of my generation has been seduced into a drunken condition of immediate pleasures. The pleasures of playing now, having sex now, and then living off of grandma’s paycheck for the rest of their lives. Maybe the cause is the unwillingness to work hard toward success. Did we get so relaxed that we have lost our desire to be truly successful? Or have we simply given in to the contemporary peer-pressures of our time? Either one leads to economic troubles because my generation is the future. It’s the reason why, from 1957 to his death, Dr. King would travel a total six million miles. It’s the reason why, from 1957 to his death, he would speak twenty-five hundred times: to empower a broken economy.
From “Dr. King’s Unfinished Business: Promoting Economic Empowerment” by Kourtney Harvey
Although some equalization is apparent today, Dr. King’s business still isn’t finished. I believe empowering people economically was on his agenda. Economic empowerment would help to eliminate a lot of discrimination that still lingers through the world. Stereotypes are something that can be a form of discrimination, and could definitely change or become extinct if everyone enjoyed true economic empowerment. Then, if economic discrimination was not a factor, people would not use stereotypes that point towards people of certain economic backgrounds or ethnicities. For example, not all black people live in the projects, or live off of food stamps, or need Section 8 to have a decent place to call home. All white people are not rich, live in gated communities, and send their children to a private school whose tuition is more than a university.
From “What’s Going On?” by RaShawn Johnson
We as a people, a community, a nation and a civilization need to delineate our personal definitions of success, wealth and productivity. When we enter the thresholds of the work forces that we assimilate into, are we viewed as assets or liabilities? Are we innately and externally worthy of promotions, raises, and career inclines or lateral moves valuing titles only? Careers are predestined, birthed by dreams of becoming acclaimed, recognized, respected and revered for making a difference in the world and the lives of others. The philosophy that “all individuals were born with and for a purpose,” is becoming extinct because the value of human life and unity have been compromised by the evils of greed, dishonesty, inflated ambiguity and internal and external wars of the economic system in itself.
