When the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968 while in Memphis to support the AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) sanitation workers’ strike, he was organizing the Poor People’s Campaign for social and economic justice. He believed that economic security, as well as racial equality, was a basic human right. “What good is the right to sit at a lunch counter,” Dr. King asked, “if one can’t afford the price of a meal?”

In many ways the Poor People’s Campaign is still with us. Today, more than 30 million working people in this country work in jobs that pay poverty wages and provide few if any benefits. With Arizona having among the lowest salaries in the nation, 14 per cent of Arizonans live in poverty; 1. 7 million Arizonans have no health insurance, with 200,000 of that number being children.

Backed by the Arizona State AFL-CIO and other organizations, Rep. Steve Gallardo, D-13, will propose legislation to increase the hourly minimum wage from $5. 15 to $6. 65. As an alternative to a possible legislative failure, the supporting organizations are prepared to place the issue on the 2006 ballot. If successful, the effort would do much to improve the lives of those whose incomes are now supplemented by charity or government-subsidized programs — subsidized housing, childcare programs and free school lunches.

What are we saying about the respect we have for work and working families when we coolly tolerate a system in which a man or woman can work fulltime in this affluent country and still be condemned to a life of poverty, including all the denial of opportunity that such indecent wages bring?

It is not acceptable that we treat workers as little more than obstacles in the path to bigger profits.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday is not a time for rest and frivolity and play. It is a day set aside for measuring ourselves against the yardstick of King’s hope and dream. It is a time to reflect on our moral obligation to condemn social and economic systems that rob people of dignity and equal opportunity. It is a time to remember the philosophy of nonviolent action for creating positive social change. The holiday invites us to act — to act in a way that reaches out to those in most need and in a way that will have our elected officials understand that investment in human capital pays great dividends.

To commemorate the birth of the Rev. Dr. King in a way that does not mock his legacy, I would suggest that the business community work with the labor community to make economic justice a reality for all people.

James Kimes, Prescott Valley