World of Opportunity

Conscious of today's poverty:
A CHANGE IS SOON TO COME

By Warren Goodgain
World of Opportunity (WOO)
Birmingham, AL 35212

Submission for the 2006 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Essay Contest
Sponsored by the National Conference for Community Justice (NCCJ)

First of all, there are ideas in Dr. King's speech from 1968 that relate to our circumstances of 2005. For instance, when he talked about the people that were living in poverty, I think that forty-three years later, we still have the same problem.

Dr. King mentions that he met a woman that was living in an apartment and he describes the conditions which she was living. Those conditions were just terrible. Her rent was a hundred ($100.00) dollars ,for an apartment that was shared with roaches and rats. That's pathetically unrighteous. Today, one of my friends has an apartment where the toilets are backed up all of the time and the landlord won't fix them. She is paying about two-hundred and ninety dollars ($290.00) rent a month, and she, too, has to share her apartment with a few roaches. Has forty-three years really made a difference?

On another occasion, Dr. King and his wife, Coretta, visited Mississippi and saw families struggling. Children were walking the street without shoes. They didn't receive income from the government such as an old age pension, food stamps, or welfare. We see the same conditions , as, children are going to school without clean clothes, wearing torn shoes, and often times their hair is undone. Most of the boys that I've seen need hair cuts and the girls just have untamed pony tails. Now, to me, the government is doing nothing to help, but everything to make living conditions & life worse. I'm sure the government has something to do with the public schools requiring uniforms which most parents can't afford. So, if the child is sent to school without the right uniform, he or she is sent home. It's as though the school officials are saying, "You are too poor to come to our school."

Today, our taxes are rising. So are the price for food and clothing. The gas prices are as high as the costs of everyday living. When you go to a clothing or grocery store these days, you can't call a sale a "sale" anymore because of the high taxes tagged on to the price. High taxes and low minimum wages are causing people to kill and rob people. Five dollars and fifteen cents ($5.15) an hour is the minimum wage today. That's only nine-thousand, eight-hundred, and eighty-eight dollars ($9,888.00) a year (That assumes that you work full time. If you work part time, it's even less. ) That's barely enough for one man to live off of. So, think about a whole family of two or three children. That's just in a fast food restaurant.

Employers of a restaurant are only required to pay two dollars and thirteen cents ($2.13) an hour in wages. The worker has to get the rest of their pay in tips. Not having enough money to support a family leaves a man with difficult options like: working second and third jobs, accepting low pay, or, sadly, robbing a wealthy dressed man for cash, or stealing food from a grocery store so, he and his family may eat.

Today's situations inspired me to write this poem. It is called, "A Change Is Soon To Come".....

"When I am going through something my mama would say,
stand the storm son and just pray.''
This is the same advice I give to the victims of the storm
who weren't really alarmed.
I feel your pain
and I'm sorry for those that didn't live.
Please know the sun will shine again,
move the gray clouds and you will no longer drown in the rain.
Come on, y'all we have to pull together
real strong because there's something terrible going on.
Do you care?
Gas prices on the rise,
people losing lives,
and with low minimum wages,
I'm wondering how are we're supposed to survive?
I mean, gas fare's the same as hourly pay
just not fair.
If I was a billionaire,
I would try to make sure home has an equal share.
Let the truth be told,
people are selling their souls
just for a piece of gold
and you wonder why I say they're losing their lives.
Do I have your attention yet?
How about we bring our P.O.W.'s home?
How about we have single female parents
trying to make it on their own?
I have to give it to women though,
they're strong.
The homeless man on the corner has no food,
so he don't know what to do.
Uh oh, he done found a gun and robbed you!
Did I wake you up
or did I shake you up?
How about lending a hand to the poor man or woman,
with the attitude, brother or sister?
God bless you.
Lets' try this: kneel down,
eyes closed, hands together,
now wait for miracles to unfold.
Those of you that understand where I'm coming from
know that a change is soon to come."

Still, there hasn't been a raise in minimum wage for at least eight years. People are starving and can fiercely afford to feed and clothe themselves, and put gas in their cars on five dollars and fifteen cents an hour ($5.15). At one point I was working at a fast food restaurant making ($5.15) and I quit because it wasn't enough to support me.

I hate watching what I see when I look at my poverty-living people; I mean barely-living people. Every time I go outside some man is sitting on the corner, begging for a dollar, and some woman is trying to sell her body. Most of the time it's for a piece of crack. That's awful.

I believe that we should unite as a strong force make what we feel is unjustified, right. Nothing is impossible. I feel if we put our minds together to accomplish any of these things, such as an increase minimum wage to a real living wage, and also to reduce taxes. We can do it. As Dr. King quotes from the Bible, "Behold, I make all things new ; former things are passed''. This same spirit can be said by today's people, only if we work together. That means that people do not have to continue to live in poverty.