King defined genuine equality as economic equality, not just legal integration.

Evidence

A year later, in March 1968, King spoke to striking, impoverished Black sanitation workers in Memphis, “Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality,” he told the crowd. “For we know that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?” A month later, a white man assassinated King. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 1371

Categorization

• SEED: The seldom-quoted radical King — economic repair as the unpalatable demand — is a strong essay angle: ‘the King we refuse to quote.’
• ADDENDUM: Pairs naturally with ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ as another instance of selective memory — only here the selective memory is about a revered figure’s radical economic demands, not about dress.