In 1967, at the National Conference for New Politics, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke about the “sickness” that plagued our nation. That sickness, he said, was made up of three evils — poverty, racism and militarism.
Nearly 60 years later, as we celebrate King’s life, legacy and birthday, we as a nation, and in fact the world, are dealing with the same issues — but more amplified under America’s current political power structure.
What concerned King then was the dearth of courageous power brokers in the public and private sectors who ignored racism, poverty and the nation’s military buildup.
He predicted that if unchecked, it would be the undoing of America. And decades later, he’s been proven right.
The Trump administration has unleashed a new kind of racism that has infected Congress, the White House and some statehouses to the point that elected officials proudly and officially honor people who spew venom against people of color, peaceful protesters and countries that are our allies.
We have become a nation that gleefully withholds food assistance for poor people, makes medical care inaccessible and hired a billionaire to discontinue decades’ worth of humanitarian aid meant to eradicate starvation and disease abroad.
“Billions are appropriated for mass murder, but the meager pittance for foreign aid for international development is crushed in the surge of reaction,” King said.
Fast forward to today: In 2025, the U.S. cut food aid to developing nations by $1.3 billion and medical care for American Medicaid and Medicare recipients by more than $900 billion. Yet its military spending will top $850 billion this year.
Racism, bigotry and militarism have become the cornerstone of the Trump administration.
President Donald Trump has reviled people from African nations and recently attacked the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as being “bad for white people.”
For months, armed, faceless federal agents have blanketed our cities looking for Black and brown people to deport, even if it means injuring or killing innocent people. The militarization of our cities fits snugly with U.S. actions abroad — indiscriminate attacks on oceangoing boats without evidence of imminent threat and now, at least one entire nation.
All of this continues to unwind while many elected politicians on both sides of the aisle dodge the public and thus, accountability.
King said one sickness can’t be cured without curing all three.
Let this holiday remind us of the cure: Resisting with courage and without violence, and electing leaders who lead with their conscience — those who know that even if powerful people are on the wrong side, they themselves will hold to what is just and right.
