Introduction and background to the prayerful litany

Dr. King was especially supportive of farmworkers Cesar Chavez and Delores Huerta who organized a mass movement of farmworkers that would come to be known as the United Farm Workers and win the right to organize for California workers.

Though Dr. King and Cesar Chavez, never met, Martin sent Cesar a telegram during his 25 day fast in Delano, CA which read, "As brothers in the fight for equality, I extend the hand of fellowship and good will and wish continuing success to you and your members...You and your valiant fellow workers have demonstrated your commitment to righting grievous wrongs forced upon exploited people. We are together with you in spirit and in determination that our dreams for a better tomorrow will be realized."

In the fall of 1967, two years after the passage of the Voting Rights Act (July, 1965), and four years since the March on Washington, Dr. King dialogued with leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Council about how he believed that black Americans were being integrated into a power-value structure that was inimical to true justice and equality for all. "Our economic must become more person-centered than property-centered and profit-centered," King said and Andrew Young added that "Even if you're a winner in a rat race, you're still a rat." Two days after this staff retreat, King called a press conference where he announced SCLC's call for a Poor People's Campaign that would mobilize the poor and disinherited across the nation to take non-violent action together to win jobs and income for the poor. Through nonviolent direct action, King and SCLC hoped to focus the nation on economic inequality and poverty. The campaign also differed from previous SCLC campaigns, as it aimed to address the struggles of a cross-section of minority groups. "It must not be just black people," argued King, "it must be all poor people. We must include American Indians, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, and even poor whites." The leadership and unity of poor people in making a moral, non-violent stand for an America that valued all its people and left none in need was to be the final campaign of King's life.

King and SCLC poured their energy into developing a second march on Washington of poor people from across the nation. All the while King and SCLC leaders flew around the country giving support to local initiatives by ordinary people who were standing up for their rights. With the announcement of the Poor People's Campaign the threats on Dr. King's life increased. In March 1968 Dr. King went to Memphis, despite a bomb threat on his plane, to march peacefully with sanitation workers who were on strike. And it was in Memphis, in the midst of organizing the Poor People's Campaign and in preparation for that march, he was assassinated.

Remembering Dr. King and the movement for civil and human rights, SCLC leader Diane Nash said to author David Garrow, "If people think that it was Martin Luther King's movement, then today they - young people - are more likely to say, 'gosh, I wish we had a Martin Luther King here today to lead us.'.If people knew how that movement started, then the question they would ask themselves is, 'What can I do."

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers and people of faith and conscience across the country are forging a new movement, a partnership of farmworkers and consumers together who are demanding a fundamental change in business practices that exploit human beings.

The litany below draws from the work of poet Adrienne Rich, the World Social Forum and, of course, the writings of Dr. King. Describing the way that, too often, people who wish to see change passively wait for someone else to speak and act, the poet Adrienne Rich reminds us "we are the people we've been waiting for." The World Social Forum, a global gathering of poor, grassroots leaders from around the world in which the Coalition of Immokalee Workers participates, chose the cry "another world is possible" to capture both the hope and possibility of ordinary people making significant global justice a reality. All other quotes are from Dr. King's sermons, books or speeches. The final lines of the litany echo Gandhi's penetrating call that we must be the change we wish to see in the world.

A prayerful litany remembering the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in our struggle for human rights and fair food

One: God we gather in your presence to remember and give thanks for the life and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin King Jr. and to seek wisdom and strength in this struggle for human rights and fair food.
All: God we know with you, another world is possible. We are the people we've been waiting for. Be with us now.

One: Dr. King once preached, "What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn't have enough money to buy a hamburger?" He knew that genuine equality was impossible in a climate of dramatic economic inequality.
All: God we know with you, another world is possible. We are the people we've been waiting for. Help us speak the truth.

One: Dr. King carefully connected true love with appropriate use of power. He wrote," Love is not meekness, without muscle. Love is not sentimentality without spine. Love is not a tender heart without a tough mind. While it is none of that, it does mean caring. Love means going to any length to restore the broken community. Love means going the second mile to restore the broken community. Love means turning the other cheek to restore the broken community."
All: God we know with you, another world is possible. We are the people we've been waiting for. Show us how to love.

One: The choices Dr. King made to stand up and speak out were not easy; doing justice rarely is. He wrote, "Now let me tell you, on some positions, how it is asked the question, is it safe? Expedience asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right?

There are times in life when you must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular. But you do it, because it is right. This is where I am today. The ultimate measure of a person is not where he stands in moments of convenience and moments of controversy, but where she stands in moments of challenge, moments of great crisis and controversy."
All: God we know with you, another world is possible. We are the people we've been waiting for. Grant us the courage of our convictions.

One: Dr. King reminds us that we are actors in human history; people with a responsibility and opportunity to make our society better. He declared, "I choose to be a hammer, not an anvil. I am not going to be molded by the patterns of an unjust society. I am going to be out there trying to mold it. I'm not going to be a thermometer, merely going around registering the temperature of a hawkish nation. I choose to be a thermostat, constantly transforming the atmosphere and the temperature of the total society."
All: God we know with you, another world is possible. We are the people we've been waiting for. May we be the change we wish to see in the world. Otro mundo es posible! Otro mundo es posible! Otro mundo es posible! Amen.

Prepared by Noelle Damico for "Human Rights and the Struggle for Fair Food: Making Dr. King's Dream Our Reality," a faith-based symposium in Immokalee, FL, January 15- 16, 2005.

The symposium is sponsored by Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Miami; the Coalition of Immokalee Workers; Disciples Home Missions of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); Peace and Justice Office of the Diocese of Venice; Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida; the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U. S. A.; National Farm Worker Ministry; Pax Christi USA; the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.); School of Theology, University of the Poor; United Church of Christ Justice and Witness Ministries; United Methodist Church - General Board of Church and Society; the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, and St. Thomas University.