Guest Contributor

Martin Luther King, III

In January of 2006, Martin King co-founded Realizing the Dream, a non-profit dedicated to continuing his father's unfinished work: the fight against poverty and economic injustice in America. Throughout the summer, he is traveling on a Listening and Learning Tour to different communities in the United States - cities, towns, and rural areas - that are struggling with poverty. The goal of the tour is to interact directly with these communities and discuss the challenges they face and the initiatives - public and private - they are implementing to surmount them.

At the culmination of the tour, Realizing the Dream will hold an October summit in Washington, D.C. with representatives from all the communities Mr. King and his team have visited. The goal is to bring together all the information gathered on the tour, to tabulate it and begin analysis towards the creation of a specific program initiative - national in scope and local in execution - that will allow Realizing the Dream to have a real effect on some of the communities it has visited. This initiative will be announced and launched in January of 2007, in conjunction with Realizing the Dream's celebration of the King Holiday.

Mr. King and Realizing the Dream are very grateful to DMI for this chance to share some of the initial findings on the tour. What follows is notes from the road of a journey through the less fortunate corners of America; please follow along with us on the trip, and contribute your own thoughts and observations as we go.

Posted by Guest Contributor at September 5, 2004 03:51 PM