In Atlanta, Philadelphia, Chicago, among other cities, King staffers gathered disparity data on corporations doing business in black communities. King was well aware of arguments against affirmative action. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic. In 1965 King compared affirmative action to the GI Bill. And you will remember that America adopted a policy of special treatment for her millions of veterans after the war.
Affirmative action is preference for inclusion, for equal opportunity, for real democracy.
And contrary to Gingrich, King insisted that, along with individual efforts, collective problems require collective solutions. There is no free-market proxy for race or gender in America. This is a multi-racial nation where all groups are dependent on each other. Like Justice Thurgood Marshall, King viewed affirmative action as a means to achieving a truly equalitarian and color-blind society. To destroy the means, the gradual process by which equality is achieved, destroys the dream itself.