There are so many vacant lots in Detroit that serious plans are being made to start up family farming there. 90,000 vacant lots and homes boarded up. Detroit suffers record unemployment. Not one chain grocery store still does business in Detroit. Not one national chain retail store. Detroit residents travel to the suburbs to shop, spending $2 billion a year outside the city.

On Aug. 28, 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King led the March on Washington, with the vital support of United Auto Workers President Walter Reuther. This year, on Aug. 28, the RainbowPush Coalition will join UAW President Bob King and congressional, civil rights and union leaders to lead a March in Detroit for Jobs, Justice and Peace.

In 1963, Dr. King gave his famous “I have a dream” address. His theme was that we had come to Washington to redeem a check, a promise that had been returned stamped “insufficient funds.” The promise of equal rights and equal opportunity had yet to be redeemed.

American politics isn’t beanbag. It is rough, bare-knuckled and often dirty. In today’s 24/7 media environment, attack ads are remembered, and the truth has a hard time catching up with a lie. We now have entire TV networks that are essentially ideological propaganda outlets. With Republicans consolidated as the party of white sanctuary, anchored in the South, and Democrats championing diversity and inclusion, the politics of race is accentuated.

You don’t need a meteorologist to know this economy is befogged. We need jobs. Big companies are sitting on cash and not hiring. Small businesses have a hard time sustaining credit lines, much less getting more credit. Foreclosures are still coming. States and localities are starting to cut services and layoff employees. And Washington is virtually gridlocked because of partisan division.

Barack Obama comes home this week to celebrate his birthday, and to visit a Ford plant that has begun hiring again, aided by Department of Energy loan guarantees for clean energy production. Although Ford wasn’t bailed out, it is part of an auto industry saved by the president’s bold decision.

Shirley Sherrod was pushed out and then invited back, as the administration realized that the right-wing attack on her was totally unfounded. But even the offer of a job gets it wrong. Shirley Sherrod is a freedom fighter. She’s not looking for a job, she cares about justice.

On Aug. 28, citizens will gather from across the country in Detroit to march for jobs and justice. The United Auto Workers, the Rainbow Coalition and dozens of other organizations will help sponsor the march. Bob King, the newly elected UAW president, describes its purpose: “We need to make our voices heard. We have millions unemployed, families losing their homes, teachers being laid off.”

Last week, the House passed emergency funding of another $37 billion for the war in Afghanistan. At the same time, Congress failed to extend unemployment insurance benefits that have already expired for more than a million Americans who have been unable to find work.

More than 20 million Americans are unemployed. Nearly half of them have been unemployed for more than six months. Families are losing their homes. And the Senate of the United States– faced with a Republican filibuster — has refused to pass an extension of unemployment insurance for those who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own.

America’s cities are in trouble — and desperately needed help may not be on the way. Will America’s cities turn into cauldrons of poverty, desperation and fear? Or will we revive our cities and rebuild the broad middle class in the process?

President Obama this weekend called on the Congress to pass a $50 billion bill in aid to states that will help forestall the layoff of 300,000 teachers, police, firefighters and more. Despite this, the prospects for the legislation are not great. Deficit hawks seem to rule the roost these days on Capitol Hill.

Some 300,000 teachers face lay-offs this coming year. Congress hasn’t even had a vote on legislation that would keep them employed. Teenage employment was at record lows last year — when the stimulus bill funded some summer jobs.

Memorial Day. A time to remember, to express our gratitude to those who have given the full measure of devotion — their lives — in the service of this country. With our military engaged in two wars, we should not forget the extraordinary sacrifice they are making to put their very lives on the line at our country’s call.

Rising tea party Republican star Rand Paul says civil rights laws should not have applied to the owners of private restaurants or hotels or other businesses. They should have the right to discriminate on the basis of race — and, presumably, on the basis of gender, age, sexual orientation, age or disability.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court issued its historic decision in Brown v. Board of Education, ruling that separate and unequal education violated the Constitution. This was a parting-of-the-Red-Sea moment in the struggle for freedom. The court outlawed segregation. The dream — that we would have one America, one big tent in which all could live — was recognized in law.

Mother’s Day has passed in celebration. Restaurants were filled with families; florists enjoyed one of their biggest days of the year; Hallmark cards cleaned up. All of us are eager to pay tribute to our mothers on this annual day. But originally, Mother’s Day wasn’t about flowers or going out to dinner. It wasn’t a time to sell specials at spas, or peddle candies to children anxious to please their mothers.

Chicago and other urban areas are in crisis. In Chicago, 113 people have been killed this year — a higher death toll than the troops have suffered in Afghanistan. The emergency is so dire that state legislators support calling out the National Guard to patrol Chicago’s streets.

Amid a flood of revelations about Wall Street fraud and corruption — from mortgage brokers peddling loans they knew couldn’t be paid back, to rating agencies dressing up junk with AAA ratings, to Goldman Sachs creating and selling a security designed to fail

Was the bank bailout successful? The Treasury Department, in a report leaked to The Wall Street Journal, is arguing that the bank bailout cost much less than expected — less than $100 billion, while saving the entire global financial system from collapse.

On Monday, people across the country observed a moment of silence for the tragic loss of 29 lives at the Upper Big Branch mine in Montcoal, W.Va. The nation’s worst mining disaster in over four decades took place at a mine that had been cited for literally hundreds of violations over the last year, including many serious ones.