Are Americans Good Samaritans - How Martin Luther King's Example Can Empower American's Humanitarian Majority (Essay)

The United States civil rights movement promoted a comprehensive, interdependent humanitarian agenda substantially identical to international human rights in that it integrated economic, social, and educational advancement with political and civil rights. Second, the civil rights movement's success in bringing revolutionary legal and societal change shows that Americans accept this broad conception of rights and refutes the notion that Americans reject the idea that humanitarian principles of economic and social justice are personal rights. Third, contemporary polling data suggests that most Americans would support a contemporary humanitarian agenda, particularly on issues of human rights and social justice. In short, there is a "silent humanitarian majority" in America whose value-based policy preferences are being ignored by United States policymakers in many respects. Fourth, the advocacy methods used by Dr. King and the civil rights movement show how the humanitarian agenda embraced by a majority of Americans could be turned into policy