It is a Republican-promulgated myth to say that anyone, if they try hard enough, can work their way up from poverty to become successful and prosperous. Yet, most people suffering from poverty do not have much chance at becoming a movie star, a best-selling author, or a business tycoon.

Sometimes, in the midst of those protest marches, a feeling springs up unawares, a feeling that Martin’s last dream can never die. His visionary dream of a Poor People’s Campaign remains an unsurpassed blueprint for the edifice of human rights we are still waiting to construct — a resurrection of the Dream.

Wherever we find love, courage, sacrifice, generosity of spirit, resistance to injustice and a faith kept with others — ah, it is there that beauty appears, shining forth. Many “ordinary” people manage, perhaps in lesser ways than did Mandela, but not unlike him, to bring the Good into the world through their courage and devotion.

Philip Rosheger, one of the most distinguished classical players and composers of our time, was immersed in music and composition, but loved to talk about injustice and poverty. I hope those who read this will consider being generous with the next street musician you see in his honor. He would love that.

It’s time to bring immigrant workers out of the shadows. It’s time to treat them like human beings and offer a path to citizenship. It’s time to take care of our laborers and their families, not throw them in jail and let their kids suffer and die.

So much depends upon the conscience of people like Grace and Urvashi. I see these two women — one at the beginning of her life, the other having spent 30 years working for social justice — as moral examples to all of us. It is a privilege to witness their lonely stand for justice.

Do you remember voting to let an unelected group of wealthy property owners hire people to control our public spaces? Neither do I. Yet, the Block by Block program is expanding from coast to coast as a nonsensical response to poverty and the housing crisis. Public spaces should be for everyone.

The administration’s efforts to quash press freedom are in sync with its unrelenting persecution of whistleblowers. The purpose is to choke off the flow of crucial information to the public, making informed “consent of the governed” impossible while imposing massive surveillance and other violations of the First, Fourth and Fifth Amendments.

“The capacity of the government to engage in constant surreptitious monitoring of all civilians has been greatly enhanced by the commercialization of the Internet,” said media analyst Robert McChesney. “The commercialized Internet, far from producing competition, has generated the greatest wave of monopoly in the history of capitalism.”

Let’s demand a law that protects us from the rapacious investment schemes of the rich, and limits their investments in housing. The rich can go on speculating in the racehorse market, the art market, the market for big diamonds and fancy boats, but not our housing, which is a human necessity.