Race, Labor, and the City in the Obama Era: King's Unfinished Agenda

Abstract

In “Race, Labor and the City in the Obama Era: King's Unfinished Agenda,” Honey surveys what has happened in Memphis since the King assassination. He argues that King's phase one of civil rights has largely succeeded but that King's phase two of economic justice has not. As is the case all over the nation, the black working class has suffered disproportionately from deindustrialization, loss of unions, and the trickle-down economics of racial capitalism. Honey argues that the election of Barack Obama as president forty years after King's death provides unprecedented opportunity but only if a movement counters diluted proposals for “bipartisan” reform with demands that government implement King's unfinished agenda of ending racism, poverty, and war.