The situation of most African Americans has deteriorated since the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, despite his long struggle to empower blacks in the United States, a researcher and historian in Washington says.
African Americans continue to suffer from a high rate of unemployment, poverty, violence, incarceration and family destruction, said Dr. Randy Short, who has a PhD in African studies.
“We’re suffering incremental genocide through gentrification or ethnic cleansing of urban areas through unfair lending and building policies,” Dr. Short said in an interview with Press TV on Tuesday.
Blacks in the US lack effective leaders and a strong family foundation to organize and carry out a revolution in the country, the researcher noted.
“We have no leaders, we need family, we need a moral revolution amongst our people; we have to stand up, otherwise we are doomed,” he warned. “America is guilty of genocide (against blacks) and the world is watching it happen to us.”
American protesters have staged nationwide demonstrations to mark Martin Luther King's Day and protest against racial and economic injustice in the United States.
Protesters on Monday afternoon met in the middle of the Lake Street Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River between Minneapolis and St. Paul in Minnesota, and shut it down.
A similar protest and closure occurred in San Francisco Bay in California on the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge.
Mia Birdsong, a spokeswoman for the protesters, told the San Francisco Chronicle they were from a group called Black Seed, an offshoot of the Black Lives Matter movement.
"We are here to move towards an increase in the health and wellbeing (sic) of all Black people in Oakland & San Francisco," the groups wrote in a statement.
Martin Luther King, a clergyman and leader in the African-American Civil Rights Movement, was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He is best known for his role in the advancement of civil rights in the 1950s and 60s.
James Earl Ray, was convicted in King’s murder and sentenced to 99 years in the Tennessee State Penitentiary. However, some Kings historians dispute the argument that Ray acted alone and believe there was a conspiracy to kill him.
Some researchers believe the US government was complicit in King’s assassination, similar to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
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