A Passionate Challenge, in King’s Spirit

President Clinton, in a plea Saturday that evoked the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., challenged every American to work to stop the crime, violence and drug abuse that have taken cancerous root and plunged this nation into a murderous crisis.

In an impassioned call to African-Americans that probably no recent Republican president could have made without fear of being called racist, Clinton said if King were alive today, “he would say, I did not live and die to see the American family destroyed. I did not live and die to see 13-year-old boys get automatic weapons and gun down 9-year-olds just for the kick of it. I did not live and die to see young people destroy their own lives with drugs and then build fortunes destroying the lives of others.”

Speaking at the Memphis church where the civil rights leader preached his final sermon the night before he was assassinated, Clinton implored black ministers to turn inward for solutions that will repair families and rebuild neighborhoods. But in a tough talk tempered with compassion, the President also acknowledged that the black community needs help from government, business and elsewhere to reduce its record levels of homicide, unemployment and poverty.

Clinton touted pending anti-crime legislation as an example of how government can help. Indeed, despite a $22-billion price tag, Congress should pass the package, which would put 100,000 more police officers on the streets, toughen gun control laws, increase punishments and create boot camps to try to salvage young offenders.

These additional police officers and penal facilities of course are needed, but fortunately they aren’t the only weapons in Clinton’s arsenal. As did King, who fought poverty as well as racism, Clinton recognizes the importance of jobs.

“I do not believe we can repair the basic fabric of society until people who are willing to work have work,” the President said in calling for a partnership between government and business to create more employment.

Jobs alone won’t stop the killing. The Rev. Jesse Jackson and other black leaders are speaking out at schools, playgrounds, even the funerals of the sons and daughters of the black community, in a crusade against the violence. In a welcome appeal for greater individual responsibility, they are entreating young people to put down their weapons and break the code of silence that handcuffs police and allows the shooters to kill again.

Young black men, among whom murder is the No. 1 killer, are far from the only Americans dying for no good reason. These deaths are not inevitable. The President knows this, and, like King a generation ago, he refuses to give up on America.