A Martin Luther King Day Remembrance Needs to be Deeper and Broader than Erasing Racial Prejudice - It's About Dignity Especially for the Poor

 “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”— Martin Luther King Jr.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day arrives every year like a bell that rings in our conscience.

It doesn’t just ask us to remember, it asks us to become. Better. More caring. More concerned for others. Less judgmental of people who are different, to become the kind of people—and the kind of community—where more families can lift their heads, stand tall, and have a decent chance to live the good life.

Because if we listen to Dr. King’s later years, we hear something very clear: he was not only fighting racism. He was fighting for dignity—and for the kind of economic fairness that makes dignity possible in everyday life.

He was fighting for a world where people did not have to be ashamed of being poor.

Maybe because I was born and raised in Appalachia it makes me get pretty hot under the collar when people are shamed for being poor. To me they are just as beautiful and capable as anyone else.

I remember a doctor friend frowning as we talked about me being from Tennessee.  His idea was those Appalachians were all ignorant, nasty Deliverance inbred sort of stock with refrigerators on our porches – our sole talent being able to play banjos. And here’s the worst part.  It was our fault since we were lazy and ignorant, it was the way it would always be for us. Every single one of us. Now there were times when efforts were made from outside Appalachia to help and the Appalachian people rejected those efforts. The reason? People felt looked down on. They were called stubborn and stiff-necked rather than people who wanted dignity.

I see kids here in Cashmere, Washington who don’t want to go to school. Being bullied for what? For being poor!

I see parents who are squeezed to buy certain shoes or brands of clothes, so their kids won’t be made fun of. Poverty isn’t just hard, it’s humiliating.

Yesterday, one of my teen acquaintances was excited. 

“My friend Gina’s dad got a new job!” he said. “Repairing those big semi-trucks.” We had just passed a big semi which jogged his thoughts.

“His monthly pay is going from $1,000 to $3,000!”

And then—his voice changed. He softened, almost protective. He said, “I’m not calling her poor. She calls herself poor. It will mean a lot for them.”

I know Gina and her family.  Gina is a lovely, bright, young woman who helps her friends think through their problems, but the parents don’t want their kids to associate with her because her parents and siblings live in a run-down trailer. Gina’s reluctant to show her natural extroversion.  She knows rejection. And like most, she wants to belong, to be respected. Like all of us.

And many children learn early, without anyone even saying it out loud, that being poor means you lower your eyes… and you don’t take up space.

And the tragedy is not only that poverty hurts people. t’s that shame makes them shrink. And when people shrink, society loses what they could have offered: their humor, their leadership, their inventiveness, their work ethic, their courage, their grit.

We lose gift after gift after gift—not because people in poverty lack ability, but because poverty often steals dignity before it steals anything else.

Here is the thing I wish we said more on Martin Luther King Jr. Day:

Helping people get out of poverty is not just compassionate. It is one of the smartest, most stabilizing investments a society can make.

Because poverty doesn’t stay contained. It spills into everything. And when families become stable, the benefits ripple outward like circles in a pond.

When families have stability, desperation decreases. And when desperation decreases, you tend to see fewer crises—less chaos, fewer desperate choices, fewer situations that spiral.

It’s not soft-hearted to reduce poverty. It’s community safety.

Poverty forces people into the most expensive forms of support: emergency rooms, crisis shelters, police response, incarceration.

When we invest earlier—before people break—society saves money, stress, and human suffering.

Helping people out of poverty strengthens children (and the future workforce…

Kids do better when households have stability. Parents have more patience. Children concentrate better. Schools function better. Communities become more hopeful. And a hopeful community is a resilient community.

Helping people out of poverty strengthens the economy… When people earn more, they spend locally: rent, groceries, gas, shoes, childcare, repairs.

That paycheck doesn’t float into outer space. It cycles through the town. It strengthens small businesses.

The teen’s story was not only a family story. It was an economic story. And it was a hope story.

If you asked me—June Darling, hand on heart—what the best investment is for helping people get out of poverty, I’d answer simply: pathways to stable work and friend-to-friend, dignified connections so you don’t make assumptions about what is needed. Real connections and…

Real skills. Real credentials. Real wages. Real opportunity.

When I think about real skills, real credential, real wages, real opportunity, I think of our community colleges. The community colleges offer workforce programs that connect to real careers —especially in areas like Allied Health.

Our local community college supports apprenticeship pathways too—the kind of training where people earn while they learn and build skilled trades careers that can support a family.

In other words: Our community colleges are bridges our of scarcity, helplessness, and shame. The people are treated with dignity with the assumption that they are capable and have contributions to make.

And for the Christian readers, in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus begins his ministry with a mission statement: “good news to the poor.” Jesus does not treat the poor as embarrassing. Jesus does not treat the poor as a nuisance. Jesus treats the poor as beloved. He restores dignity before he restores anything else.

He looks people in the eyes. He calls them by name. He eats with them. He offers belonging. And perhaps this is the most radical thing Jesus does:

He refuses to make poverty into someone’s identity. He doesn’t say, “This is who you are.”

He says, “This is what you’re carrying.” And then he helps carry it.

One of the reasons poverty feels so shameful in America is that we often treat it like a personal flaw. That is true in other countries besides the U.S. but not in the Scandinavian countries for example. It doesn’t mean other countries are perfect, but we can take a look at what’s happening there at least.

Here’s the answer that feels most Jesus-like, and most MLK-like:

Treat people as capable - the opposite of dignity is being treated like you are a problem.

Dignity says: “You are a person with gifts. You are not invisible. You are not less-than.”

The uplifting truth on MLK Day: when people rise, we all rise…

That teen’s story ends with a father earning more.

But it also ends with something bigger:

a household standing taller.

a family breathing.

a future opening.

And this is why Martin Luther King Jr. still matters: he believed a nation is not healthy when people have to hang their heads down. He wanted an America where dignity and respect are a given. One of my daughters-in-law was raised in rural China. She came to America believing what all her village friends believed, "You can be anything in America." I want that to be true.

So on this MLK Day, my prayer is simple: May we become the kind of community that helps people lift their heads. May we invest in bridges—good jobs, training, opportunity. May we treat the poor not as projects, but as neighbors. And may the good life become more possible… for more people.

Because a good life that only belongs to a few isn’t the good life. And we were made for something better.

How might we journey together to the good life by noticing our poor neighbors who need help and connect with them, stand beside them, see them as Martin Luther King did…capable, beloved children of God?

Poor People's March on Washington 1968