Martin Luther King III

Janice Hahn, Eric Garcetti and Martin Luther King III

We were joined in council chambers by Martin Luther King III. In January of this year, King co-founded “Realizing The Dream”, a non-profit dedicated to continuing his father's unfinished work: the fight against poverty and economic injustice in america.

He is currently on a looking, listening and learning tour to communities in the United States that are struggling with poverty, preparing for a summit from affected communities next month in Washington D.C. I was glad to have a chance to talk to him about Los Angeles, where the 300 richest individuals own the combined wealth of the 3 million poorest. That's as clear a picture of the gap between rich and poor in our country as you'll see. A society with that kind of gap is, at some level, undemocratic; a city with that kind of division is divided against itself.