King called for a "gigantic Marshall Plan" for the poor in 1964

King eventually realized that many white Americans had at least a psychological stake in perpetuating racism. He began to recognize that racial segregation was devised not only to oppress Black Americans but also to keep working-class whites from challenging their own oppression by letting them feel superior to blacks. "The Southern aristocracy took the world and gave the poor white man Jim Crow," King said from the Capitol steps in Montgomery, following the 1965 march from Selma. "And when his wrinkled stomach cried out for the food that his empty pockets could not provide, he ate Jim Crow, a psychological bird that told him that no matter how bad off he was, at least he was a white man, better than a Black man."
When King launched a civil rights campaign in Chicago in 1965, he was shocked by the hatred and violence expressed by working-class whites as he and his followers marched through the streets of segregated neighborhoods in Chicago and its suburbs. He saw that the problem in Chicago's ghetto was not legal segregation but "economic exploitation" -- slum housing, overpriced food, and low-wage jobs -- "because someone profits from its existence."
These experiences led King to develop a more radical outlook. King supported President Lyndon B. Johnson's declaration of the War on Poverty in 1964, but, like his friend and ally Walter Reuther, the president of the United Auto Workers, King thought that it did not go nearly far enough. As early as October 1964, he called for a "gigantic Marshall Plan" for the poor -- black and white. Two months later, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, he observed that the United States could learn much from Scandinavian "democratic socialism." He began talking openly about the need to confront "class issues," which he described as "the gulf between the haves and the have nots."

The New Face of Poverty: Has the Face of Poverty Changed 50 years later?

The Causes of Poverty

President Lyndon B. Johnson

War on Poverty

Speech, 1964

We are citizens of the richest and most fortunate nation in the history of the

world…[W]e have never lost sight of our goal: an America in which every citizen

shares all the opportunities of his society, in which every man has a chance to

advance his welfare to the limit of his capacities. We have come a long way

toward this goal. We still have a long way to go.

The distance which remains is the measure of the great unfinished work of our

society. To finish that work I have called for a national war on poverty. Our

objective: total victory.

There are millions of Americans – one fifth of our people – who have not shared

in the abundance which has been granted to most of us, and on whom the

gates of opportunity have been closed.

What does this poverty mean to those who endure it? It means a daily struggle

to secure the necessities for ever a meager existence. It means that the

abundance, the comforts, the opportunities they see all around them are

beyond their grasp. Worst of all, it means hopelessness for the young.

The young man or woman who grows up without a decent education, in a

broken home, in a hostile and squalid environment, in ill health or in the face of

racial injustice--that young man or woman is often trapped in a life of poverty.

He does not have the skills demanded by a complex society. He does not know

how to acquire those skills. He faces a mounting sense of despair which drains

initiative and ambition and energy…

[W]e must also strike down all the barriers which keep many from using those

exits. The war on poverty is not a struggle simply to support people, to make

them dependent on the generosity of others. It is a struggle to give people a

chance. It is an effort to allow them to develop and use their capacities, as we

have been allowed to develop and use ours, so that they can share, as others

share, in the promise of this nation.

We do this, first of all, because it is right that we should…We do it also because

helping some will increase the prosperity of all. Our fight against poverty will be

an investment in the most valuable of our resources-the skills and strength of our

people…It strikes at the causes, not just the consequences of poverty.