The ‘Black Lives Matter’ cause, driven by a series of incidents across the country in which white police officers killed unarmed black men, has become a movement in areas around the country.

Unfortunately it seems that these incidents continue somewhere in this country every day. They act to drive the movement forward.

New Yorkers are familiar with these incidents and the drive-by shootings and killings of young people, often children, who are not the targets but are caught in the cross-fire of gang activities, in specific neighborhoods throughout the five boroughs.

Too often our justice system works to either free or be too lenient in those situations in which white cops are ‘pulling the trigger’ – and so the slogan Black lives matter has become the name of an effort to fight back against criminal justice practices which seem unfair and clearly discriminatory.

But why is it limited to criminal justice? Don’t black lives matter in public education? In public housing? In healthcare? In opportunities for employment?

And where is the leadership in the African-American community to see that black lives matter in each and every instance?

There is as yet no specifically identified national leadership team in charge and so statements come from the crime-affected community – leadership which voluntarily steps up to fight back against these crimes – crimes committed most often but not exclusively in urban areas in our cities across the country.

But the emphasis is on crime. There is no Al Sharpton ready to lead a march for education, healthcare or the people who live in the NYCHA buildings. No one is marching for them.

And while we think there is value inherent in the name of the effort and the location of its spokespeople, we find ourselves faced with that inevitable question: Must there be overt deaths involved before the people of this country band together to do something about it?

And if black lives matter – and clearly they do – to whom? And when?
It seems on the surface that this all began when some police officers in Staten Island, got very aggressive with a resident who took to selling loose cigarettes on street corners…considered a petty crime. Officers told Eric Garner to go home, but he seemed more willing to discuss his need for money and his way of receiving some despite the knowledge that he’d been ‘moved along’ by local police before and they were intent on doing it again. And the skirmish ended in his death.

That seemed to trigger a series of incidents all over the country highlighted in Ferguson, MO a poor suburb outside of St. Louis and the death of Michael Brown. And then an incident caught on tape when a police car came to a screeching halt outside a public park in Cleveland in response to a phone call which that said an African-American boy was shooting a handgun.

The police car door was flung open and in an instant a cop shot and killed the boy — who was playing with his water gun.

It is clear now that urban police departments must do a great deal to update hiring and training on street work techniques. And that the criminal and juvenile justice systems must take a broader look at what works to produce justice in these cases.

But what is the real message here?

We believe that black lives must matter in our public schools. In our public housing. In our health care system

Black lives must matter long before they are killed in our streets.

And that black leadership must be developed to take on this much greater battle; a battle that exists every single day amongst the poor in America.

Martin Luther King, was assassinated in Memphis only after he began to see that the issue was not simply discrimination due to skin color but in fact, due to economic class. Poverty doesn’t provide you with civil or criminal or education or housing rights. Poverty provides you with little or nothing but living day to day the best way you can.

Photo of ML King, Jr, and David Abernathy
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rev. Ralph David Abernathy
Ralph Abernathy, who co-chaired King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, said before he died that the greatest mistake the movement made after King’s death was not to develop another tier of young leaders. It wasn’t developed across the country.

It doesn’t exist in New York.

The poor in America have never really been represented.

Unions organized the working class and helped them into the middle class.

There is no longer a defined middle class in America because we produce little in the way of goods for sale. Jobs disappear. And the future seems dead-ended for college graduates, much less the essentially uneducated poor in America.

Black lives mattered to leaders like King and the churchmen and women, long the leadership backbone of America’s blacks, when they put their lives on the line for civil and voter rights.

When they did they were joined by leaders of different faiths and white leadership who walked by their sides and provided funding they needed. It’s time for the leadership to go beyond the end-game of criminal justice – it is very late by then…and look at housing in NY…and especially the NYCHA houses and force the devastating bureaucratic power controlling the lives of 500,000 people to do the right thing.

Black lives do matter. Start where people live and go to school and look for jobs. Level the playing field of opportunity and criminal justice will take care of itself.