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PARTS 1 & 2 – MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. AND THE CHICAGO FREEDOM MOVEMENT: Coming to Chicago and the Start of the Campaign in 1966.

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FEATURE image: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is joined (from left) by Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, James Forman, Rev. Jesse L. Douglas, and John Lewis at a march for voting rights in Alabama in 1965. King would come to Chicago in January 1966. Fair Use.

By John P. Walsh

The first nonviolent civil rights campaign in the North led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) started in Chicago, Illinois, on January 5, 1966—50 years ago this month.

The multi-pronged campaign was Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s first major effort outside the South and the first following the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. King’s coming to Chicago was greatly influenced by the Watts riots in August 1965 where those deadly six days demonstrated to King and the nation the high cost in human lives and property associated with deep discontentment in the black community over isolating and chronic high unemployment, substandard housing, and inadequate schools.

King’s consideration to come to Chicago in 1966 was further energized by national issues activated by a local focus: in this case, King’s broad support for recent Federal complaints brought by the Chicago Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO) alleging segregation in the Chicago public schools. As there was a huge new Federal aid package for those public schools in the nation which desegregated by the start of the 1965-1966 school year, a charge of segregation in a state in the north and in the nation’s second largest city was unexpected, provocative, and dangerous to the natural progression of the status quo.

Led by former schoolteacher Albert Raby (at King’s right), the CCCO brought together a mix of often competing groups — including CORE’s Chicago chapter, the Catholic Interracial Council, and the Urban League. Here, King and Raby face the Chicago press alongside SCLC strategist Bayard Rustin (at King’s left), the coalition’s leadership gathered at a pivotal moment in the city’s civil‑rights fight.

The status quo in Chicago, at least in terms of its politics, was embodied in one man: Mayor Richard J. Daley (1902-1976). King’s intention to come to Chicago instead of to another big northern city was that he figured to find in Mayor Daley a powerful ally to his civil rights movement. Already Daley vocalized agreement in principle with King’s message of open housing and racial justice, but King’s potential challenge to any aspect of the mayor’s absolute political power never gained Daley’s sympathy or recognition.

Many in Chicago’s local civil rights community, however, welcomed Dr. King’s presence in Chicago in 1966. Activists like Dick Gregory (1932-2017) had marched on City Hall — and into the Bridgeport neighborhood to Daley’s home — dozens of times but to no avail in terms of tangible policy changes for blacks in a city where blacks constituted 25% of its population. Perhaps the efforts of Dr.King in Chicago could break the deadlock. 

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights had recently labeled Chicago “the most residentially segregated city in the nation” but Daley chose to see it differently. There was no legal segregation in Chicago and Daley believed it was simply a “city of neighborhoods.” The 63-year-old Daley also felt that if government handouts were not downright un-American then, by 1965, big Federal programs should be administered at the local or city level and not from Washington. Daley’s calculation, a lawyer since 1934, always included his concern for the augmentation and not diminishment of his political power.

Released in late November 1965, Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” surged to no. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1966 and held no. 1 on the R&B chart for five weeks. Co‑written by Wonder at just fifteen, the single marked a turning point — one of the few early‑mid‑1960s hits to reach the Top 40 on both charts and the record that launched the next phase of Wonder’s career heading into the second half of the decade.

1920’s flats in Bridgeport in 2015, the Chicago neighborhood of Mayor Richard J. Daley.

Chicago slums, 1950.

While Daley’s home rule views appealed to some Chicagoans, other Chicago neighborhoods stayed in flux. There had been a longstanding mistrust, for example, between poor West Side residents—most of whom were black and concentrated by the mid1960’s into a vast ghetto—and a largely white Chicago police and fire departments. In the summer of 1965 street riots in West Garfield Park effectively produced the integration of 40 of 132 firehouses where calls for integration had been resisted since the early 1950’s.

The City of Chicago’s contrariness to aspects of President Johnson’s Great Society carried into the office of Chicago’s Education chief Benjamin C. Willis (1901-1988). In October 1965 Willis defied federal mandates for the release of requested materials as well as blocked the use of new national achievement tests in city public schools. This led to Chicago being temporarily denied their part of the massive $1.3 billion federal aid to schools program.

Benjamin C. Willis in 1963.

The overall alliance of Mayor Daley and President Johnson was strong in late 1965 so that the federal aid money called into question was restored within the week. Further, the federal official who had challenged the political power structure by citing Daley’s public schools for contempt of Federal segregation mandates was swiftly punished with a demotion.

President Lyndon B. Johnson (r.) meets with Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley in the White House, April 21, 1966. Photograph by Yoichi Okamoto.

It was into this political hothouse that Dr. King decided to build a civil rights campaign for open housing, jobs, and educational opportunity for African-Americans which in October 1965 Daley announced he welcomed with open arms.

Meanwhile Daley was also mobilizing local black and other elected officials in Chicago to establish their own community action programs to co-opt or sideline any of King’s anticipated civil rights initiatives and efforts. This important time when Dr. King came to live and work in Chicago from January to August 1966 and its immediate legacy came to be called the “Chicago Freedom Movement.”

In January 1966, Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped into a cold, worn tenement on Chicago’s West Side to begin the city’s nine‑month campaign, a drive that pushed poverty and racial injustice onto the national stage. As he climbed those narrow stairs into a rundown set of rooms, he was also entering the hard, complex politics of a major northern city ruled by Democratic mayor Richard J. Daley — the man widely known as “Boss.”

It was on Wednesday, January 26, 1966, that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King (1927-2006) installed themselves into a West Side apartment in a low-income Chicago neighborhood on the West Side.

At the outset the SCLC and their allies were political outsiders in Chicago and mainly sought an amenable agreement with the established political powers in a city embodied by 63-year-old Richard J. Daley, its mayor since 1955.

In the middle of the cold and brutal Chicago winter King humbly began his campaign by stating that he was looking to study the city’s social conditions.

King wanted to know which nonviolent campaign tactics—whether it was street marches, voter registration drives, rallies, fund raisers, or something else—would be effective to progress the objectives of job creation, open housing,  educational opportunity for African-Americans and, by summer of 1966, slum clean-up and a citizen’s review board for police brutality and misconduct.

On January 26, 1966, Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King moved into a modest apartment at 1550 S. Hamlin Avenue on Chicago’s West Side. King’s stay in the tenement was deliberate — a way to spotlight the city’s segregated housing conditions and anchor the campaign to end slums across Chicago. — Chicago Tribune, Feb. 24, 1966

With second‑hand furniture supplied by local shops, Martin and Coretta Scott King sit inside their new Lawndale apartment at 1550 S. Hamlin Avenue on their first day in Chicago. King’s move into the tenement in January 1966 drew national attention, spotlighting the harsh conditions of the city’s slum housing and underscoring the urgency of the campaign he came to lead. Photograph by John Tweedle.

Martin Luther King Jr. removes a window frame while helping renovate an apartment at 1321 S. Loman Avenue in Chicago in 1966. His move into a West Side tenement was meant to expose the city’s housing segregation — but the work went further. The SCLC, the CCCO, and the Westside Federation became extralegal “trustees” of the building, with tenants paying rent directly to the SCLC, which used the funds for repairs. Male tenants were hired as laborers and paid King’s proposed minimum wage of $2.00 an hour — well above the federal $1.25 rate in 1966. King told Defender reporter Betty Washington that the experiment offered a glimpse of “the kind of social planning” that could revive degraded urban neighborhoods and bring “new life and new hope” to Chicago’s slums. Photograph by Luigi Mendicino, Chicago Tribune, Feb. 24, 1966.

Coretta Scott King stands inside the Homan Avenue tenement in Chicago in 1966 — the building her husband’s campaign had taken over and begun repairing as part of its push to expose and confront the city’s segregated housing conditions. The apartment was only a five‑minute drive from the Kings’ residence on Hamlin, linking their public experiment in slum rehabilitation to their daily life in Lawndale.

During their 1966 stay on Chicago’s West Side, Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King lived at 1550 S. Hamlin Avenue, just a ten‑minute walk from Stone Temple Baptist Church at 3622 W. Douglas Boulevard. Built in 1926 as a synagogue and converted into a Baptist church in 1954, Stone Temple had already hosted King several times in the 1950s and early 1960s. During his Chicago residency, it became a key base for his civil‑rights and fair‑housing work — efforts that helped pave the way for the Fair Housing Act, signed on April 11, 1968, one week after his assassination. Today, Stone Temple is led by Bishop Derrick M. Fitzpatrick, grandson of the church’s founder, Rev. James Marcellus. PHOTO: “Stone Temple MB Church” by reallyboring is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. see – https://stonetemplegreenteam.org/stone-temple-church – retrieved September 2, 2025.

“Baby Scratch My Back” written and performed by “swamp blues” singer Slim Harpo (1924-1970) was a number one hit playing on the radio in 1966.

As King spoke about a “closed society” in Chicago, the elected political power structure out of the Mayor’s office maintained an omnipotent grip on city services as a vicious circle of poverty in some black neighborhoods was permitted to exist. It was complicated by the Mayor’s public assertions that there “were no ghettos” in Chicago though Black citizens were de facto restricted to living in only certain of Daley’s “city of neighborhoods.”

King’s outsider status—which at first was understood as a mostly useful factor among Chicago’s civil rights activists—also worked to undermine King’s effectiveness in Chicago throughout 1966.

King and his circle were unfamiliar with Chicago’s vast size and complicated demographics. Also, perhaps unexpectedly, opposition to King’s efforts didn’t always fall cleanly along racial lines.

Whether coming from whites or Blacks, resentment to the Atlanta-based minister in Chicago usually always revolved around his being viewed as an interloper and potential power rival.

Dr. Joseph H. Jackson (1905–1990), longtime president of the National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc., and pastor of Chicago’s Olivet Baptist Church, was a fierce opponent of the Chicago Freedom Movement and delivered sharp, public attacks on Dr. King throughout King’s time in the city. Jackson’s stance had already drawn backlash: in 1963, he was booed off the stage — alongside Mayor Richard J. Daley — at an NAACP rally in Grant Park.

Support from Chicago Black ministers, a natural political base for King, was frequently blunted in 1966 by intimidating reminders from City Hall that this or that certain church would be having its building or fire code inspection coming up.  

Moreover, big cities across the nation, including Chicago, were looking to receive a huge influx of money out of Washington, D.C. including part of a new $2.3 billion anti-slum program (about 17 billion in 2015 dollars). This huge infusion of money to Chicago was part of programs for infrastructure and social services marking President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society.”

King was politely pressured by city officals to forego what could only be seen as futile and time-wasting efforts of trash drives and meetings so to allow the Chicago mayor and his allies to get down to the serious work of eliminating city slums by, as Daley announced, no later than the end of 1967.

Daley’s home-court advantage and enormous financial support from the Democratic U.S. president and Congress gave Dr. King’s civil rights operation among the poor and dispossessed an appearance of superfluity, if not outright meddling.

Tactically, on every front, Daley tried to match King’s organizational efforts often by simply buying off King’s allies.

When King filled the International Amphitheatre on South Halsted Street with 12,000 Black celebrities and supporters on March 12, 1966 for a rally, Daley led 70,000 marchers and 350,000 spectators down State Street in the St. Patrick’s Day parade a few days later.

Mayor Richard Daley leading the St. Patrick’s Day Parade on State Street in 1963.

After the SCLC took a supra-legal action to seize a dilapidated tenement building, Daley limited his response which left King to deal with all the legal and public relations headaches.

King was not naïve about his own position. He did not want the Chicago Freedom Movement to become politicized. Daley had a mayoral primary in February 1967— he was running unopposed for a fourth four-year term. Some King allies in Chicago wanted an opposition candidate to Boss Daley, something that had never materialized to that point, and coalesce around the Chicago Freedom Movement to run against the mayor.

King refused the idea. Despite the political leeway, Daley worked continuously in 1966 to limit and even sideline King’s efforts in Chicago. King’s hope that the Irish-American big city northern mayor would risk or trade political power for King’s agenda of social justice and civil rights on behalf of the city’s African-Americans —historically a full third of the population —was mostly dashed in 1966.

Daley’s selective embraces of King never offset the mayor’s overall strategy to restrain the civil rights leader’s efficacy in Chicago. At the same time Daley did not want his restraint of King to impact or curb the broad voter support that the Daley administration had.

Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. discusses fair‑housing conditions with Chicago real‑estate broker Gilbert Balin of G. Balin Inc. As King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference pressed their campaign to end slum housing — soon known as the Chicago Freedom Movement — meetings like this underscored the push to confront discriminatory practices across the city’s real‑estate industry. — Jack Mulcahy, Chicago Tribune, Nov. 3, 1966

Regardless of Daley’s defensive efforts, King did not lose sight of his message of improved housing, education and economic development for African-Americans in Chicago. At this still early juncture of his time in Chicago, KIng carried on with his own civil rights campaign leaving any direct confrontation with Mayor Daley possibly for the future.

One SCLC initiative that scored quick success was a project started in February 1966 headed by Rev. Jesse Jackson (1941-2026) called Operation Breadbasket (renamed by Jackson Operation PUSH after King’s death). Within months there were several hundred new Black hires in Chicago-area businesses by way of this action.

Rev. Jackson at an Operation Breadbasket event, May 9, 1970. Photo by Chris Holmes.

During their nine months in Chicago in 1966, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King lived and worked on the West Side, laying the groundwork for what became the Chicago Freedom Movement. King spent those late‑winter and early‑spring months learning the city and shaping a strategy — from the Hamlin Avenue “trusteeship” experiment to Operation Breadbasket, and from meetings with Black and white civic leaders, including Mayor Richard J. Daley and Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad, to efforts to steer gang members toward non‑violence. He moved constantly through community groups across the West Side. Here, he walks with members of the East Garfield Park Community Organization, part of the broad coalition he sought to build. Photograph by John Tweedle. Fair Use.

King’s months-long presence in Chicago in 1966 could also be credited for prompting Mayor Daley to establish new city programs. Daley also hosted various “summits” with clergy, labor and business leaders with the agenda to combat poverty and racism in Chicago.

In August 1966, Daley, with the support of the Chicago Freedom Movement, accepted the departure of public schools Chief Benjamin Willis and the appointment of James F. Redmond, a racial progressive, who served in that capacity until 1975. Still, Daley considered only white men for the post and overlooked two qualified Black candidates.

One thing Dr. King considered a key effort to improve African-American lives in the ghetto was to transform gang members into nonviolent civil rights activists. When a gunfight at a SCLC meeting in May 1966 broke out between Blackstone Rangers and East Side Disciples that ended King’s official initiative in this direction for the present.  

Meanwhile, Richard J. Daley continued his downtown redevelopment. In March 1966 Daley announced a $200 million package for mass transit and made sure the Civic Federation — a good government watchdog group — was there to endorse it. In addition to Loop and North Michigan Avenue redevelopment, Daley dedicated in May 1966 the Civic Center, soon to be graced by the iconic Picasso sculpture in 1967.

Now the long, hot days of the Chicago summer were on the doorstep. Many in the city wondered at the start of summer 1966 to what extent Dr. King’s plans might add to the heat.

Dr. King’s 1966 apartment at 1550 South Hamlin Avenue on Chicago’s West Side was damaged during the unrest that followed his assassination on April 4, 1968 and was later demolished. The lot remained vacant for decades until 2011, when the Dr. King Legacy Apartments — designed by Johnson + Lee — were built on the site. The $18‑million, 45‑unit complex includes commercial space along 16th Street, including the new home of the Fair Housing Exhibit Center, linking King’s Chicago work to the ongoing fight for equitable housing.

A painted mural of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Lawndale tenement where he lived and worked in 1966 stands as the centerpiece of the Fair Housing Exhibit Center. Created by nationally renowned Afro‑Indian muralist Paul Collins, the artwork anchors the site’s tribute to King’s Chicago campaign and its legacy in the fight for fair housing.

SOURCES: Martin Luther King, Jr. with profiles of Mohandas K. Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, Lori Meek Schuldt, World Book, Inc., 2007; American Pharaoh, Mayor Richard J. Daley: His Battle for Chicago and the Nation, Adam Cohen and Elizabeth Taylor, Little, Brown and Company, 2000; At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68, Taylor Branch, Simon & Schuster, New York, 2006; Civil Rights Digital Library – http://crdl.usg.edu/events/watts_riots/?Welcome. On Tina Allen – http://chicagopublicart.blogspot.com/2013/09/dr-martin-luther-king-jr-bust.html. On the CCCO- – http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/features/archive/0110/photo_essay.jsp?page=3. On Hamlin trusteeship  –http://www.oxfordaasc.com/public/features/archive/0110/photo_essay.jsp?page=6.

The next chapter of the campaign:

PART 3 – MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. AND THE CHICAGO FREEDOM MOVEMENT: Marches and Rallies of Summer 1966.
August 28, 1963: the 72-minute MEETING AT THE WHITE HOUSE OF CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS WITH PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY following the historic March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
https://johnpwalshblog.com/2016/01/15/reverend-martin-luther-king-jr-and-the-chicago-freedom-movement-1965-and-the-coming-to-chicago

This explanatory article may be periodically updated.

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968).

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FEATURE image: “martin luther king” by caboindex is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

“The Other America” speech, Stanford University, April 14, 1967 –

I came to see that so many people who supported, morally and even financially, what we were doing in Birmingham and Selma were really outraged against the extremist behavior of Bull Connor and Jim Clark toward Negroes rather than believing in genuine equality for Negroes. And I think this is what we’ve gotta see now, and this is what makes the struggle much more difficult. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “The Other America” speech, Stanford University, April 14, 1967.

In “The Other America” speech Dr. King presents “two Americas” – one that is “beautiful” and the “other America ” that is an “arena of blasted hopes and dreams.” In these remarks on racism and civil rights in American society, Dr. King explains that his campaign is about people who “are seeking to make America one nation.”

Somewhere, we must come to see that social progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals. And without this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the primitive forces of social stagnation. And so we must help time and we must realize THAT THE TIME IS ALWAYS RIGHT TO DO RIGHT. “The Other America” speech at Stanford University on April 14, 1967.

Letter From Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963 –

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of the tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), Letter From Birmingham Jail, 1963.
I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), Letter From Birmingham Jail, 1963.

Christmas Sermon on Peace and Nonviolence, December 24, 1967 –

https://youtu.be/1jeyIAH3bUI?si=rRh0YujxpRD_sRQA – retrieved Jan 18, 2021.

(29.52 minutes) On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1967, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his Christmas Sermon on Peace and Nonviolence in his pastorate, Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. It is also known as A Christmas Sermon on Peace and Peace on Earth Sermon.

For many people this is their very favorite of Dr. King’s sermons. It was broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as the fifth and final part of the 1967 Massey Lecture Series. In the sermon, Dr. King articulates the values and tactics of his broad and long-term vision of nonviolence as the path to world peace. At one point Dr. King states: “In 1963, on a sweltering August afternoon, we stood in Washington, D.C. and talked to the nation about many things. Toward the end of that afternoon, I tried to talk to the nation about a dream that I had had, and I must confess to you today that not long after talking about that dream I started seeing it turn into a nightmare. I remember the first time I saw that dream turn into a nightmare, just a few weeks after I had talked about it. It was when four beautiful, unoffending, innocent Negro girls were murdered in a church in Birmingham, Alabama. I watched that dream turn into a nightmare as I moved through the ghettos of the nation and saw my black brothers and sisters perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity and saw the nation doing nothing to grapple with the Negroes’ problem of poverty. I saw that dream turn into a nightmare as I watched my black brothers and sisters in the midst of anger and understandable outrage, in the midst of their hurt, in the midst of their disappointment, turn to misguided riots to try to solve that problem. I saw that dream turn into a nightmare as I watched the war in Vietnam escalating, and as I saw so-called military advisors, 16,000 strong, turn into fighting soldiers until today over 500,000 American boys are fighting on Asian soil. Yes, I am personally the victim of deferred dreams, of blasted hopes, but in spite of that I close today by saying I still have a dream, because, you know, you can’t give up in life. If you lose hope, somehow you lose that vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of all. And so today I still have a dream.”

Martin Luther King, Jr., San Francisco, June 30, 1964. “Martin Luther King, Jr. San Francisco June 30 1964” by geoconklin2001 is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

NBC News, August 9, 1966 –

I contend that we are not doing more harm than good in demonstrations, because I think demonstrations serve the purpose of bringing the issues out in the open. I have never felt that demonstrations could actually solve the problem. They dramatize the existence of certain social ills that could very easily be ignored if you did not have demonstrations. I think the initial reaction to demonstrations is always negative….Ultimately society must condemn the robber and not the robbed. It must protect the robbed, and this is where we are in these demonstrations, and I am still convinced that there is nothing more powerful to dramatize a social evil than the tramp, tramp of marching feet. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), interview from Chicago with Richard Valeriani (NBC News), August 9, 1966. Cited in The Eclipse of Equality: Arguing America on Meet the Press, Solon Simmons, Stanford University Press, 2013, p. 161.

Meet The Press, August 21, 1966 –

I hope that the president didn’t mean to equate nonviolent demonstrations with a riot, and I think it is time for this country to see the distinction between the two…I think demonstrations must continue, but I think riots must end. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), interview from Chicago with Meet The Press, August 21, 1966. Cited in The Eclipse of Equality: Arguing America on Meet the Press, Solon Simmons, Stanford University Press, 2013, p. 160-61.

“Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. (March 31, 1968) –

The Poor People’s Campaign, planned at the time of Dr. King’s assassination, aimed to confront the nation with the moral crisis of poverty. Conceived as a more radical successor to the 1963 March on Washington, it called for a multiracial Poor People’s March and the creation of “Resurrection City,” a sustained occupation on the National Mall until Congress enacted an Economic Bill of Rights. Its demands—full employment, guaranteed income, large-scale anti-poverty investment, and expanded low-income housing—reflected King’s growing conviction that racial justice required a restructuring of economic power.

The campaign emerged in a moment of profound social change: urban uprisings, stalled civil rights gains, and a Vietnam War that drained resources from the poor. King linked race and class more explicitly than ever, arguing that the nation had to shift from a “thing-oriented” to a “people-oriented” society and that capitalism itself required not dismissal but moral examination.

In late 1967, Dr.King announced the Poor People’s Campaign, framing poverty as a national emergency that demanded direct federal action. He set the terms in the SCLC campaign announcement (December 4, 1967), stating that rising inequality threatened the country’s stability. He established the campaign’s moral footing in “The Drum Major Instinct” (February 4, 1968), describing service to the poor as the proper use of ambition. He defined the economic program in “Where Do We Go from Here?” (March 1968), calling for guaranteed income and a redistribution of power. He linked these goals to labor rights in “All Labor Has Dignity” (March 18, 1968), identifying the Memphis sanitation strike as part of the same struggle for economic justice. He widened the frame in “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution” (March 31, 1968), warning that the nation faced moral decline if it failed to confront poverty. And, the night before he died, in “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” (April 3, 1968), he tied the Memphis campaign directly to the planned Poor People’s March, presenting unified economic action as the next phase of the movement.

After King’s death, Ralph Abernathy and Coretta Scott King carried the campaign forward, though without his unifying presence. Its legacy endured. In 2012, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West launched Ending Poverty: America’s Silent Spaces, explicitly invoking the 1968 vision and renewing its call to confront structural poverty in the United States.

One of the great liabilities of life is that all too many people find themselves living amid a great period of social change, and yet they fail to develop the new attitudes, the new mental responses that the new situation demands and they end up sleeping through a revolution. “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. (March 31, 1968).
There can be no gainsaying of the fact that the great revolution is taking place in the world today. In the sense it is a triple revolution: that is, a technological revolution with the impact of automation and cybernation; then there is a revolution in weaponry with the emergence of atomic and nuclear weapons of warfare; then there is the human rights revolution with the freedom explosion that is taking place all over the world. “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. (March 31, 1968).
It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. (March 31, 1968).
Not only do we see poverty abroad, I would remind you, in our own nation there are about 40 million people who are poverty-stricken. I have seen them here and there. I’ve seen them in the ghettos of the north. I’ve seen them in the rural areas of the south. I’ve seen them in Appalachia.… The tragedy is, so often these 40 million people are invisible, because America is so affluent, so rich. Because our expressways carry us away from the ghetto, we don’t see the poor…“Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. (March 31, 1968).
We are coming to Washington in a Poor People’s campaign. Yes, we are going to bring the tired, the poor, the huddled masses. We are going to bring those who have known long years of hurt and neglect. …
We’re going to bring children and adults and old people, people who’ve never seen a doctor or dentist in their lives. We are not coming to engage in any histrionic gesture. … We are coming to demand that the government will address itself to the problem of poverty. “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. (March 31, 1968).
America has not met its obligations and its responsibilities to the poor. One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas. We built gigantic buildings to kiss the sky. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power. It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, “That was not enough! But I was hungry and ye fed Me not. I was naked and ye clothed Me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in and ye provided no shelter for Me. And consequently you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness….” “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. (March 31, 1968).
Anyone who feels, and there’s still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a revolution.
… It has played havoc with our domestic destinies. This day we are spending $500,000 to kill every Viet Cong soldier. Every time we kill one, we spend about $500,000, while we spend only $53 a year for every person characterized as poverty stricken in the so called poverty program, which is not even a good skirmish against poverty…“Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. (March 31, 1968).
I say to you that our goal is freedom. And I believe we’re going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom. “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution,” National Cathedral, Washington, D.C. (March 31, 1968).

According to the Supreme Court Historical Society, Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993) was a pioneering civil rights lawyer who established the legal foundation for Martin Luther King Jr.’s mass protests by successfully dismantling state-sponsored segregation in cases like Brown v. Board of Education. While Dr. King and Justice Marshall shared a mutual respect for each other’s work, they could prefer different tactics, so that Marshall used the courts to change law, while King’s movement often included nonviolent civil disobedience to push back against existing unjust law.

Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. “No Known Restrictions: Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall (LOC)” by pingnews.com is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Appointment to the Supreme Court

Following his nomination by President Lyndon B. Johnson, Thurgood Marshall was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 30, 1967, becoming the first African American to serve on the nation’s highest court. He sat as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for 24 years, from October 2, 1967, until his retirement on October 1, 1991.

Career before the Court

Before joining the Supreme Court, Marshall built one of the most consequential legal careers in American history. He served as Director‑Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund from 1940 to 1961; as a Judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1961 to 1965; and as U.S. Solicitor General from 1965 to 1967. As a trial and appellate advocate, he argued 32 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and prevailed in 29 of them.

Landmark civil rights litigation

Marshall’s major civil rights victories reshaped American law. In Smith v. Allwright (1944), he helped end whites‑only primary elections. In Shelley v. Kraemer (1948), he secured a ruling barring state enforcement of racially restrictive housing covenants. Morgan v. Virginia (1946) struck down segregation on interstate buses, while Sweatt v. Painter (1950) forced the University of Texas to admit Black law students. His most famous case, Brown v. Board of Education (1954), ended legal segregation in public schools and became a cornerstone of the modern civil rights movement.

Influential opinions as a justice

On the Supreme Court, Marshall continued to expand constitutional protections. In Stanley v. Georgia (1969), he helped establish a constitutional right to privacy in the home. In Bounds v. Smith (1977), he required prisons to provide adequate legal resources so incarcerated people could meaningfully access the courts. In Linmark Associates v. Willingboro (1977), he protected commercial free speech, reinforcing First Amendment safeguards in the context of real estate advertising.

Powerful dissents and constitutional vision

Marshall also became one of the Court’s most forceful dissenters when he believed the majority was retreating from equality and rights. He argued that the death penalty was unconstitutional in all circumstances in Furman v. Georgia (1972) and Gregg v. Georgia (1976). In San Antonio ISD v. Rodriguez (1973), he rejected the Court’s conclusion that education is not a fundamental right. He defended affirmative action in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) and supported cross‑district desegregation remedies in Milliken v. Bradley (1974). Together, these opinions and dissents reflect Marshall’s enduring commitment to racial justice, individual rights, and a robust reading of the Constitution’s guarantees.

Strength to Love (1963) –

The toughminded person always examines the facts before he reaches conclusions; in short, he postjudges. The softminded person reaches a conclusion before he has examined the first fact; in short, he prejudges and is prejudiced. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “A tough mind and a tender heart,” Strength to Love (1963).
Softminded individuals among us feel that the only way to deal with oppression is by adjusting to it. Softminded acquiescence is cowardly. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “A tough mind and a tender heart,” Strength to Love (1963).
We do not need to look far to detect the dangers of softmindedness. Dictators, capitalizing on softmindedness, have led men to acts of barbarity and terror that are unthinkable in civilized society. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “A tough mind and a tender heart,” Strength to Love (1963).
There is little hope for us until we become toughminded enough to break loose from the shackles of prejudice, half truths, and downright ignorance….A nation or a civilization that continues to produce softminded men purchases its own spiritual death on an installment plan. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “A tough mind and a tender heart,” Strength to Love (1963).
This undue gullibility is also seen in the tendency of many readers to accept the printed word of the press as final truth. Few people realize that even our authentic channels of information – the press, the platform, and in many instances the pulpit – do not give us objective and unbiased truth. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “A tough mind and a tender heart,” Strength to Love (1963).
This undue gullibility is also seen in the tendency of many readers to accept the printed word of the press as final truth. Few people realize that even our authentic channels of information – the press, the platform, and in many instances the pulpit – do not give us objective and unbiased truth. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “A tough mind and a tender heart,” Strength to Love (1963).
Open to our quest for freedom [is] nonviolent resistance, that combines toughmindedness and tenderheartedness and avoids the complacency and do-nothingness of the softminded and the violence and bitterness of the hardhearted. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “A tough mind and a tender heart,” Strength to Love (1963).
God is neither hardhearted nor softminded. He is toughminded enough to transcend the world; he is tenderhearted enough to live in it. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “A tough mind and a tender heart,” Strength to Love (1963).
“Tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr.” by U.S. Embassy New Delhi is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

“Desegregation and the Future,” Address Delivered at the Annual Luncheon of the National Committee for Rural Schools, New York City, December 15, 1956.

May I stress the need for courageous, intelligent, and dedicated leadership. I can never overlook this,…In this period of transition and growing social change, we will need leaders who are positive and yet calm. Leaders who avoid the extremes…Leaders who somehow understand the issues. Leaders of sound integrity. Leaders not in love with publicity, but in love with justice. Leaders not in love with money, but in love with humanity. Leaders who can subject their particular egos to the greatness of the cause. God give us leaders. …Leaders whom the lust of office does not kill. Leaders whom the spoils of life cannot buy. Leaders who possess opinions and a will. Leaders who will not lie. Leaders who can stand before the demagogue and damn his treacherous flatteries without winking. Tall leaders, sun-crowned, who live above the fog in public duty and in private thinking. This is one of the great needs of the hour, but as we move on all over this nation we will need dedicated, courageous, and intelligent leaders. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “Desegregation and the Future,” Address Delivered at the Annual Luncheon of the National Committee for Rural Schools, New York City, December 15, 1956.

In “Desegregation and the Future,” delivered on December 15, 1956—just days before the federal injunction ending bus segregation in Montgomery took effect—Dr. King described the moment as a test of calm, disciplined, principled leadership. He said the shift from protest to enforcement required steady resolve and a refusal to meet hostility with retaliation. The bus victory, he noted, was only an early step in a larger social transformation that demanded the same patience and moral restraint that had sustained the boycott.

Speaking in the tense post‑Brown climate of massive resistance and the rise of White Citizens’ Councils, King appealed to moderates to defend equal education and civil rights so the decade’s constitutional gains would not be undone. He argued that federal authority had to act decisively, with Congress and the executive branch matching the judiciary’s commitment to enforcing desegregation. He insisted the movement remain strictly nonviolent, warning that hatred or retaliation would poison the future. He also called on people of goodwill to speak out and press for desegregation wherever discrimination persisted.

To define the character of leadership required, King drew on Josiah Gilbert Holland’s 1872 poem “Wanted,” whose call for integrity and public virtue he often quoted in this period. In New York, he used it to signal that desegregation would not be secured by anger or opportunism but by leaders marked by steadiness, honesty, and moral discipline. The reference worked as both a standard and a warning, signaling that guiding communities through change required leadership anchored in principle.

“I Have a Dream” speech, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C., August 28, 1963 –

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today!
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968), “I Have a Dream” speech, August 28, 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking from the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, addressed the March on Washington at its peak moment. His remarks framed the gathering as a national demand for both economic opportunity and full civil rights. After the successful march for jobs and freedom, King and other movement leaders went to the White House to meet with President Kennedy. They pressed for stronger provisions in the pending Civil Rights bill, arguing that the scale and discipline of the march demonstrated broad public support for decisive federal action. Public Domain.

Nation Divided: Violent Crime and the “Renaissance of GUN OWNERSHIP” IN THE USA.

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FEATURE image: “and more guns… 121228.223” by Patrick Feller is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

By John P. Walsh
Posted December 6, 2014.
updated: October 2, 2015;
updated: February 14, 2018 (Parkland high school shooting — at least 17 killed, suspect in custody, Florida sheriff says).

On a typical day in the United States, not all firearms (a.k.a. guns) are used for “hunting,” “sport” or to “protect one’s family” as stated by President Obama in his press conference on October 1, 2015 at the White House in the wake of the mass shooting at Umpqua College in Roseburg, Oregon.

At last report, 10 people were killed (including the gunman) and 7 others critically wounded in that recent school shooting. It is the 44th mass killing incident in the U.S. in 2015 with three months to go.

“Gun Show” by M&R Glasgow is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Mass Shooting Statistics

Since the tragic and disturbing Columbine massacre in 1999 (13 killed; 21 wounded) there have cropped up in intervals of about one per week mass shootings in the U.S., not all of them school shootings, that have gained intense media attention: the Fort Hood shooting (November 5, 2009), the Gabby Giffords shooting (January 8, 2011), the Aurora movie theater shooting (July 20, 2012), the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting (Aug. 6, 2012), the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting (Dec. 14, 2012), the Navy Yard shooting (Sept. 16, 2013), the Kansas Jewish Community Center shooting (April 14, 2014), the Charleston Church shooting (June 18, 2015), the Chattanooga recruiting center shooting (July 16, 2015) and now the Roseburg community college shooting. 

A 2013 report cited 547 lives were taken between 1983 and 2012 in 78 public mass shootings. From 2013 into 2015 there were an additional 142 mass shootings (25 of them suicides or attempted suicides) in schools.

Everyday in America guns are used to kill about 80 people and wound 300 more. For accidental gun shootings, 3 people die and another 30 are wounded everyday.

Media Coverage

In the wake of this carnage, the mainstream media coverage felt a bit different this time — almost as if this kind of thing could have been happening for the first time — or that they were somehow having to start over in their approach.

Reporters seemed to embody a deeper scrutiny of, or despair at, this latest school massacre only four weeks since the murder by gunfire of TV reporter 24-year-old Alison Parker and TV cameraman 27-year-old Adam Ward In Virginia.

A shot from the shooting of Alison Parker and Adam Ward.
A shot from the shooting of Alison Parker and Adam Ward on August 26, 2015. Fair Use.

Popular support for “Gun Control”?

A Pew Research Center study released on August 13, 2015, shows a large majority of Americans in support of several specific gun policy proposals:
˙79% favor laws to prevent people with mental illness from purchasing guns.
˙70% support the creation of a federal database to track all gun sales. 
˙57% support a ban on assault-style weapons.  
˙85% of Americans favor expanded background checks (88% of Democrats and 79% of Republicans).

President Obama hinted in his press conference at another finding in the August Pew Research study when he said,  “I would particularly ask America’s gun owners — who are using those guns properly, safely, to hunt, for sport, for protecting their families — to think about whether your views are properly being represented by the organization that suggests it’s speaking for you.”

His comment was a not-too-subtle reference to the National Rifle Association (NRA) which the Pew Study finds the public has some shifting opinions about.

“March For Our Lives DC 1” by Stephen D. Melkisethian is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

While mass shooting crimes are, statistically, a snippet of America’s real field of action for gun violence, they are an especially destructive form in itself and its repercussions for the wider community. In addition to a national discussion about the mind or “profile” of a mass murderer (usually devolving into mental health concerns and/or ignorance about a reliable profile), the impact on the local or national community is less explored.

At his press conference, President Obama predicted a routine counter-punch to his gun control comments and it came swiftly. Reported by media outlets including WGN Chicago as a top story, gun-rights advocate Mike Huckabee stated the president was wrong for trying to “exploit” the Oregon shooting and that another mass killing should have no serious effect on the public debate about gun ownership in the U.S.

Yet impacts of a mass shooting are never as simple as its politics. Deleterious effects from gun violence extend to the victims and their families, and into the wider community.

Active Shooter Drills

Even extremely realistic school-shooting simulations known as “active-shooter” drills staged by local law enforcement agencies using school grounds, staff and students as actors are censured as counterproductive by psychologists and security specialists. Although the best way to help first responders prepare for gun-related violence on campus, the mere simulation of gun violence causes psychological distress among students and their families and work to make death tolls worse. 

A student actor participating the extremely realistic
A student actor participating in the extremely realistic “active shooter drills” staged by law enforcement on campus grounds around the nation. Advocates say it helps first responders better prepare. Critics claim it could actually make death tolls worse. Fair Use.
“File:Homicides and Trauma Centers in Chicago .svg” by Tmm2illinois is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Gun crime: homicides, suicides, and mass shootings

In 2011, 68% of homicides in the U.S. were gun crimes, even though these and all other crimes have dropped by almost 40% since 1993. Americans, however, continue to view gun crime as a pervasive and even worsening problem.

In 2011, 11,068 people died in gun homicides in the U.S. That number reflects a steep decline in gun homicides since the 1980’s. Yet statistics support the conclusion that more guns and access to them results in more gun violence, including murder crimes.

Media coverage of gun homicides is found mainly in densely-populated urban areas where there is, presumably, a higher concentration of guns. Mass shootings, however, frequently occur in rural or suburban settings.

PTSD

“PTSD” by Emmalois is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Based on the level of shock associated with shootings, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are the long-lasting psychological consequences of all those directly experiencing or witnessing any part of a mass shooting. This especially pertains to children.

Does gun access cause more suicide?

The most annual gun deaths in the U.S. are neither homicides, mass shootings or accidents. They are suicides. 

In 2011, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 19,990 people died by suicide with a firearm. Those yearly numbers are consistent at least since the 1990’s.

The Suicide by Édouard Manet, c. 1880, Foundation E.G. Bührle, Zurich, Switzerland. Public Domain.

Does gun access lead to more suicides? That gun suicides are less common in states where gun ownership requires criminal and mental illness background checks point to that link. 

It is obvious that by having access to a gun, the risk of having an accident increases -– but is that true for homicide and suicide?

Suicide attempts by guns are almost always fatal while suicide attempts using other methods result in death about 6% of the time. That data confirms that a firearm’s effectiveness as a lethal weapon is undeniable. It precludes the desperate person any second thoughts.

Males arrested for 75% of all crimes

Arrest statistics make clear that it is not the criminal’s age or race but gender that the law-abiding citizen should fear. Males are arrested for 75% of all crimes. These criminal acyvities fall into three braod categories, including violent crime; property crime; and, assault.

Access to guns aids this criminal facility.

Guns and domestic abuse

For example, in a survey of battered women nearly 72% reported that guns had been used against them and to threaten to kill them.

For women who are abused (and not killed) 16% live in homes with a gun.

Abused women that were killed, about 50% lived in a home with a gun.

Statistics suggest that access to a gun is a risk factor for homicide in abusive relationships. This situation is beginning to be taken up by law enforcement in police interviews with battered women.

“Domestic Abuse Awareness Month Walk” by USAG Yongsan is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Mass shootings are a tiny percentage of all gun homicide. Further, the frequency and impact of mass shootings has not increased in the last 35 years at least.

Should focus be on the mentally ill to reduce most gun crime?

To focus public safety on the mentally ill in reaction to these horrific gun crimes is likely to produce small effect on their recurrence.

Several studies have shown that the mentally ill require good health care, though its funding is relatively scarce. During the Great Recession of 2008, budget cuts for mental health amounted to almost $2 billion. Despite the lack of resources and high profile political and media focus, the mentally ill are responsible for only about 5% of all crimes and even less for those involving guns.

Each week 30% of all gun deaths in the U.S. are children

Drug and alcohol abusers engage in violent acts seven times more than the mentally ill. Funding for substance abuse programs should be even more important to gun safety advocates based on those statistics.

The link between gun violence and domestic batterers is far greater than with the mentally ill. Of those 80 people killed by guns in a typical week in the U.S., 30% are children.

After non-gun accidents, gun shootings are the leading cause of death of children in the U.S.

“Russ’s dad’s gun bike” by Richard Masoner / Cyclelicious is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Annual U.S. gun sales in billions of dollars

In 2009 there existed an estimated 310 million civilian guns (handguns, rifles, shotguns) in the U.S. and 2012 sales added $6 billion more.

Increased buying has hiked up privately-owned firearms by about 40% since 1994 when there were 192 million guns. 

The exact number of concentrations of firearms in the U.S. is unknown. About 50% of Americans report at least one gun in the home. Gun ownership in the U.S. is heavily skewed to older white men.

The U.S. has more guns per capita than any land mass in the world. Poor countries in Central America, for example, record higher gun homicide rates than in the U.S.. But among developed nations, no country has more guns per person in private hands– nor a higher gun homicide rate– than in the United States.

The gun industry is prospering today. To paraphrase Charles Erwin Wilson, the Defense Secretary under President Eisenhower: “What is good for Sturm, Ruger & Co. is good for the nation.” There is some truth to it. 

In 2012, the gun industry added $31.6 billion to the U.S. economy due to job creation and new sales taxes. The gun industry employs about 98,750 workers and 111,000 more workers as suppliers and retailers, such as Walmart.

While recreational use seems to be driving record sales, there is a darker side to the proliferation of gun ownership. As one gun advocate’s recent proclamation alludes– that “the (gun) industry has entered a golden era, a renaissance of gun ownership that transcends a dedicated segment of Americans who consider firearms a natural part of their lives”– it often equally ends those natural lives sooner than nature intends.

“Guns’R’Us” by DocChewbacca is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Background checks

Despite guns crimes, the prospect for meaningful gun control in the U.S. is bleak.

Fewer than half of Americans think that gun laws should be stricter. Another half believes they are already too strict or just about right.

In a culture where money defines free speech and guns rights are enshrined in the U.S. Constitution’s second amendment, the prosperous gun industry and its supporters which is no less than half of the U.S. population will not be surrendering its arms soon.

Gun safety measures may have a more receptive audience than attempts at gun control. These include background checks.

The mindset of some gun-rights advocates may work to divide gun owners’ attitudes about select gun control measures. That may be part of President Obama’s comments for law-abiding gun owners to reflect on “the organization that suggests it’s speaking for you.”

Controversial ideologies and opinion polls on guns

A controversial example of a mindset is the so-called NRA embrace of “insurrectionist ideology.” This asserts that the intent of the second amendment is to permit American citizens to shoot and kill federal agents and law enforcement officers in the event that they believe those agents are attempting to facilitate or impose some form of government tyranny.

Regarding the NRA specifically, Americans are divided on the organization:
˙40% think the organization is too influential over gun laws.
˙52% say it has too little or the right amount of influence.

While opinions on the NRA are entrenched and polarized, there is slight but significant movement on another issue pertaining to guns.

In 2015 Americans did an about face on the question as to whether it was more important to control gun ownership (50%) or protect the right of Americans to own guns (47%).
˙57% of whites favor gun rights over gun control.
˙75% of blacks favor gun control over gun rights.
˙72% of Hispanics favor gun control over gun rights.  

Changing demographics and marginally shifting American opinion on gun control may be the sliver of hope President Obama perceived when he said in his October 1 news conference: “It will require that the American people, individually, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, when you decide to vote for somebody, are making a determination as to whether this cause of continuing death for innocent people should be a relevant factor in your decision. If you think this is a problem, then you should expect your elected officials to reflect your views.”

President Barack Obama speaks at his press conference, Oct. 1, 2015.
President Barack Obama speaks at his press conference, Oct. 1, 2015. White House photo-Public Domain.

While polls find that over 60% of the public thinks background checks are a good idea, neither the gun industry nor gun owners want the extra burden. In an almost $32 billion-a-year industry ($6 billion in sales), background checks would be a major government intrusion.

As long as the number of gun fatalities is status quo, there likely will be no new impetus for gun control. In places like Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Michigan, Nevada and Oregon, the rate of gun deaths has exceeded traffic fatalities and they are on par with each other in Ohio and Pennsylvania. It is the choice of individuals and society–50% of which are gun owners and 95% of which own cars -–as to whether around 30,000 fatalities for each category of combustibles is a fair and acceptable human cost for their unbridled use.

Even if, as Russ Thurman writes, “Gun ownership has gone mainstream…It’s the fun factor of firearms that has been restored to the culture,” this cannot be the responsible gun owner’s sole matter of importance when discussing this uniquely American issue.

After another mass shooting the community mourns and honors the victims. “Life is precious but yet can be very short. Remembering Orlando Mass Shooting.” by Thank you, my friends, Adam! is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Footnotes:

44th such incident in 2015 – everytown.org/article/schoolshootings–retrieved Oct 2, 2015. 

Pew Research Center study  – http://www.people-press.org/2015/08/13/continued-bipartisan-support-for-expanded-background-checks-on-gun-sales/ – retrieved October 2, 2015.

Ask America’s gun owners…to think about whether your views are properly being represented by the organization that suggests it’s speaking for you- http://time.com/4058961/oregon-shooting-president-obama-transcript-speech/?xid=tcoshare -retrieved October 2, 2015.

No effect on the public debate about gun ownership in USA  – http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mike-huckabee-obama-exploit-shooting; Also http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2015/oct/02/mass-shootings-have-no-impact-on-support-for-gun-rights-in-the-us-retrieved October 2, 2015.

Effects of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)-  see http://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/newsletters/research-quarterly/V18N3.pdf;

especially on children – comments by Dr. Alan Lipman director of the Center for the Study of Violence and professor at the George Washington University Medical Center – https://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-12-17/mass-shootings-and-their-effect-american-psyche- retrieved October 2, 2015.

“active-shooter” drills – http://americanfreepress.net/bloody-school-shooting-drills-in-vogue/ – retrieved October 2, 2015.

78 public mass shootings – http://journalistsresource.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/MassShootings_CongResServ.pdf- retrieved October 2, 2015. 

142 mass shootings in schools; 25 suicides or attempted – http://everytown.org/article/schoolshootings-/- retrieved October 2, 2015.

are used to kill about 80 people and to wound 300 more – https://www.press.umich.edu/158723/private_guns_public_health#sthash.fmNmMTxZ.dpuf\- retrieved October 2, 2015.

accidental firearms shooting – http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-helmke/private-guns-public-healt_b_38208.html

Gun crimes drop 40% – http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?iid=4616&ty=pbdetail;

Americans don’t sense decline in gun violence- http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

19,990 died by suicide by firearm -http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr63/nvsr63_03.pdf;

Suicide by firearm less common in states with background checks – http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743512003295;

Males 75% of crime – https://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0325.pdf; 72% battered women report guns used against them – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448464/; 16% live in homes…yet 50% of abused women… – David Hemenway, “Private Guns, Public Health,” University of Michigan Press, 2006 p 123; Beginning to be taken up by law enforcement in police interviews – http://www.dangerassessment.org/DA.aspx and http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/magazine/102779/domestic-violence-vawa-maryland-abuse-women.

310 million civilian guns (2009) & 192 million firearms (1994) –http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/citation/quotes/6676;

gun ownership in the USA is heavily concentrated among older white men – http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/18/11-essential-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/

Mass shootings tiny percentage of homicide – https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/images/analysis-of-recent-mass-shootings.pdf; frequency and impact have changed little in the last 35 years- http://www.boston.com/community/blogs/crime_punishment/2012/08/no_increase_in_mass_shootings.html;

Mentally ill responsible for 5% of crime – http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20591996; mental health budget cuts – http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/17/seven-facts-about-americas-mental-health-care-system; drug and alcohol abusers engage in violent acts seven times more – http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/health/a-misguided-focus-on-mental-illness-in-gun-control-debate.html; link gun violence and domestic batterers – http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/opinion/gun-laws-and-the-mentally-ill.html;

Good for the gun industry good for the nation – http://www.nationalreview.com/article/352429/whats-good-america-robert-w-patterson;

At least one gun in home – http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/1217/US-gun-industry-is-thriving.-Seven-key-figures/47-percent;

$6 billion sales (2012) – http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2012/1217/US-gun-industry-is-thriving.-Seven-key-figures/6-billion;

USA more guns per capita for all & highest per capita rate for “developed” nations – http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/15/what-makes-americas-gun-culture-totally-unique-in-the-world-as-demonstrated-in-four-charts/;

No higher gun homicide rate than USA – http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2012/12/14/chart-the-u-s-has-far-more-gun-related-killings-than-any-other-developed-country;

Add $31.6 billion to economy & employment numbers – http://www.thegunmag.com/firearms-industry-bright-spot-in-struggling-world-economy/;

“A renaissance of gun ownership” – http://www.shootingindustry.com/u-s-firearms-industry-today-2012/

Fewer than half of Americans think gun laws should be stricter – http://www.gallup.com/poll/162083/americans-wanted-gun-background-checks-pass-senate.aspx; Money defines free speech – see 2010 Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission; 60% think background checks good idea – http://www.pollingreport.com/guns.htm; http://www.gallup.com/poll/162083/americans-wanted-gun-background-checks-pass-senate.aspx;

Insurrectionist ideology – http://www.examiner.com/article/flirting-with-treason-the-insurrectionist-ideology-of-the-nra-leadership

PEW research study results on NRA and question of gun rights versus gun control – http://www.people-press.org/2015/08/13/continued-bipartisan-support-for-expanded-background-checks-on-gun-sales/ – retrieved October 2, 2015.

Gun death rate exceeds traffic fatalities – http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/01/09/guns-traffic-deaths-rates/1784595/; 95% car owners – http://photos.state.gov/libraries/cambodia/30486/Publications/everyone_in_america_own_a_car.pdf