"When the Issue is Justice, Charity is Sin"

The biography featured beside a portrait of Wendi C. Thomas’s on her influential MLK 50: Justice Through Journalism website reads “Memphis journalist. When the issue is justice, charity is sin. Like MLK, I refuse to play it safe. RTs=nada” (Thomas, 2018). Her brave mantra, which is centered in a passionate drive for justice, is more than just talk. This is made evident in the stories that she writes and published which do not shy away from calling out the organizations in Memphis that are slowing or downright stopping the movement for economic justice in the city of Memphis. One of her articles is entitled “Do Memphis’ 25 largest employers pay workers enough to live on? Nearly half won’t say: But the governments of Memphis and Shelby County, as well as county schools, delivered some good news on the area’s living-wage front”. In this article Wendi Thomas re-iterates the sentiment featured in her biography which asserts ,“When the issue is justice, charity is sin” to discuss the practices of the largest employer in Memphis: FedEx. In fact, FedEx refused to even provide enough information to the journalists and editors of MLK50: Justice through Journalism to finish the living wage survey they distributed. Wendi Thomas reported that instead of returning a completed survey, they returned a statement, which emphasized their high level of philanthropic support to the MLK50 events in the city of Memphis and throughout the country. Wendi Thomas, and many other activists, do not find this to be a sufficient substitute for providing a living wage for their workers. She provides a particularly poignant quote from Martin Luther King Jr., the man who FedEx’s philanthropy is intending to honor who states that, “Philanthropy is commendable, but it must not cause the philanthropist to overlook the circumstances of economic injustice, which make philanthropy necessary,” (Thomas, 2018). This quote shows what Martin Luther King Jr.’s reaction to FedEx’s response to Wendi Thomas’s living wage survey may have been if he were alive today.

From the report compiled from the data that MLK50: Justice through Journalism was able to compile, it is clear that most employers in Memphis place little value on ensuring that all of their employees bring home a livable wage. The majority of the largest private companies in Memphis refused to say what they pay their workers and returned surveys with glaringly absent answers to the survey questions which would provide a comprehensive answer to the question, Are you paying all of your workers a wage they can live on? Wendi Thomas reveals that the short answer for the majority of Memphis companies is no.

Thomas, W. C. (2018, April 2). Do Memphis' 25 largest employers pay workers enough to live on? Nearly half won't say. MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. Retrieved April 25, 2018, from https://mlk50.com/do-memphis-25-largest-employers-pay-workers-enough-to-live-on-nearly-half-won-t-say-438bdd474d39