By Dr. Ellen Burns

The annual celebration of the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., was held in Atlanta from January 13 through 16. The theme of the event was “Full Employment: A New Order for a New Age.” Dignitaries, entertainers, and guests from all parts of the United States were present for the occasion.

A conference on full employment was held Thursday, January 13 at Ebenezer Baptist Church. After words of welcome from Ben W. Fortson, Jr., Secretary of State, and from Wyche Fowler, president of the City Council, Mrs. Coretta Scott King urged the participants to make full employment their single most important priority.

Prompt action is needed, Mrs. King said, to vitalize the economy through jobs, because high unemployment “threatens family security, the monetary base of the nation, peace, housing, and is contributing to the high rate of crime.” Mrs. King called for governmental action to provide education and training for jobs as well as for funds to stimulate private and public enterprise. She emphasized that unemployment is a moral issue, since it is the root cause of so many ills in our society, and that the disregard of the problem would be a “reprehensive evasion of responsibility” on the part of the American people.

Augustus F. Hawkins, co-author and sponsor of the Hawkins-Humphrey Equal Opportunity and Full Employment Bill of 1976, urged the support of Georgians for this piece of legislation as it comes before the next Congress. He emphasized that small economic growth indicators are not sufficient to bring about recovery from the recession. They should not “deter action or long-term planning for full employment,” he said, and suggested that general economic policies and manpower programs be planned together and that tax cuts be tied to job creation through expanding opportunities.

Following the keynote speeches of Mrs. King and Representative Hawkins, a panel of six outstanding leaders showed the relationship between full employment and health, education, housing, the arts, and crime. David Livingston, president of the Distributive Workers of American, District 65, reminded the crowd that Martin Luther King’s dream of freedom and a decent job were part of a signed package.

Dr. Peter Bourne, a psychiatrist for the National Abuse Center, stated that studies show that unemployment is “psychologically crippling” and that it leads to drugs, poor health, and to suicide.

Dr. Robert L. Greene, an educator from Detroit, reported that in June 1976 the rate of unemployment for youth in his city was 55 percent for males and 62 percent for females. He called for quality education to improve job opportunity, but “hungry children cannot learn to read,” he said, “their parents need jobs, too.”

Leon Weiner, president of the National Council on Housing, suggested that if 100,000 new homes were to be built in America, 200,000 construction workers could find jobs. He believes that the double goals of decent housing and full employment could be partially met with better planning for housing.

Ossie Davis, a Georgian and Broadway playwright, director and actor, told of the contribution of the theater and the arts to the economics of a community. In New York City the theater is a $168 million business annually. He proposed a Broadway in every major city as a stimulus to the economy. Davis was the first of several speakers who indicated that unemployment is a class struggle; the upper and middle classes are not usually the unemployed, he said, but rather the poor who need jobs the most. One observer, John Boone, an Urban Affairs Director from Boston, said that crime causes poverty.

Ramsey Clarke, former US attorney general stated the reverse. “Poverty is the mother of crime,” Clarke said. He stated that the first emancipation freed no one, because to be free one has to be economically emancipated. He urged that somehow the millions of tasks that have to be done and the fifteen million persons crying out to be given a chance would be brought together through a full employment plan.

Later in the day, Clarke urged that Americans work for the prevention of crime by providing jobs for youth. For first offenders he sees diversion before incarceration by offering jobs or training as an alternative for jail sentences. Clarke decried the involuntary servitude of those who work in prisons for no recompense instead of being meaningfully employed in work release programs.

Attention was called to the inequity of employment within the prison system. Most judges, guards, and probation officers are white; more prisoners in the US come from minority groups.

Mamie Reese, chairperson of Georgia’s pardon and parole board, reported that 70 percent of those incarcerated in Georgia are black, their average age about 30, with a fourth or fifth grade education, and with no marketable skills. There are 11,000 persons in jails and prisons in Georgia, the highest rate per capita in the US, another 33,000 persons are on parole, she said.

On Friday, January 14, an Industry/Labor/Management breakfast was held at the Martin Luther King Community Center, UAW President Leonard Woodstock expressed confidence in the Carter administration to work toward a full employment economy for this nation. Woodstock said Carter’s economic package is not a program of full employment but the stimulus the country needs at the present time to get the economy moving.

The breakfast was followed by a tour of the complex and a press conference. Friday evening a public rally was held at the Center to gather support for the drive for jobs. Dr. Benjamin Mays, president of Morehouse College and the president of the Atlanta Board of Education, was awarded the MLK Non-violence Peace Prize at the ecumenical service at Ebenezer Baptist Church on Saturday morning. Senator Ted Kennedy and Honorable Bert Lance were among the principal speakers at this ceremony. Both praised the humanitarian efforts of King and urged continued attempts at fulfilling his dream of equality, brotherhood, justice, and peace.

After a brief ceremony of the dedication of the permanent entombment of Martin Luther King at the Center for Social Change, hundreds of persons representing many organization for human rights processed in a march from Ebenezer Baptist Church to the Federal Reserve Building in downtown Atlanta. Many speakers at the close of the march urged the participants not to give up the fight or the hope for full employment.

An annual dance was held Saturday evening at the Colony Square Hotel. Several groups of entertainers performed.

The concluding ceremonies of the event were held in an interfaith service on Sunday evening from 5 until 8 p.m. at the Big Bethel A.M.E. Church. The principal speaker for this occasion was the Reverend Ben L. Hooks, executive-director designate of the NAACP. Archbishop Donnellan led the Litany of Commemoration of Martin Luther King at this celebration.