Americans today mark the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., who 40 years ago inspired his country and millions of people around the world to bring about a better world through peaceful means.

Dr. King?s message was so universal that it is not unusual today to see people of wildly divergent political views and backgrounds quoting different parts of his speeches. What he would have made of that, and where he would have stood in the political spectrum today, is anyone?s guess.

But what is certain is that he felt strongly towards the end of his life that people would not truly be free until they also enjoyed economic equality.

That?s a message that resonates as strongly today as it did in 1968. Indeed, in Bermuda, the walls of segregation have been levelled. Political power is, to all intents and purposes, in the hands of black Bermudians.

But the challenges and problems of race remain, as does the gulf between white and black wealth.

In his ?I have been to the Mountaintop? speech the night before his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, Dr. King called for measures that remain in currency today. He called for black residents of Memphis to withdraw their money from white-owned banks and to boycott the companies that did not treat black employees fairly. He called for black residents of Memphis to support black owned and operated businesses.

It?s an open question whether those forms of direct action ? lifted straight from the civil rights playbook would have the desired effect today when workplaces are integrated and businesses are so interdependent.

But it is undeniable in Bermuda today that the majority of the Island?s major businesses remain white-owned and the majority of senior executives are white (and male, although that?s a different story).

Recently, the Opposition United Bermuda Party proposed a raft of measures that would give small businesses a greater share of Government spending and the like. Those ideas would have empower black Bermudians, even if they are deliberately colour-blind.

But they will not help much unless there is a similar effort to narrow the wealth gap in the private sector. Again, UBP proposals to make more money available to small businesses will go some way to improve access to capital and so on.

But that can only go so far. Small businesses rise and fall.

But established companies could and should broaden their ownership, as the Bermuda Cement Company is proposing, in order to give more Bermudians, black and white, a share of the rewards ? and the risks ownership.

One way of doing that would be to reduce payroll taxes on companies in which a certain proportion of the ownership is held by employees. That would give employees a stake in the success of the company and in the long term, would broaden the wealth of the black community.