In 1968, just weeks before his murder, King said;

“At the very same time that America refused to give the Negro any land, through an act of Congress our government was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant that it was willing to undergird its white peasants from Europe with an economic floor.”

“But not only did they give the land, they built land grant colleges with government money to teach them how to farm. Not only that, they provided county agents to further their expertise in farming. Not only that, they provided low interest rates in order that they could mechanize their farms. Not only that today, many of these people are receiving millions of dollars in federal subsidies not to farm, and they are the very people telling the Black man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps,” 

Dr. King, continued as he outlined the reasons for his Poor People’s Campaign.

“Now, when we come to Washington in this campaign, we are coming to get our check.”

In his last years Dr. King understood that it was about human rights and economic justice he stated that;

 What good is having the right to sit at a lunch counter if you can't afford to buy a hamburger.... 

MLK wrote in his book Why We Can’t Wait (1964):

 “No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro down through the centuries. Not all the wealth in this affluent society could pay the bill. Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages,” 

In 1967 MLK Talks 'New Phase'  Of Civil Rights Struggle, 11 Months Before His Assassination - NBC News, at Ebenzer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, an interview with NBC's Sander Vanocur, Dr. King said;

The white backlash is a continuation... the other thing we must see at this time that many of the people who supported us in Selma, and Birmingham were really outraged about the extremist behavior towards negroes but they were not at that moment and they are not now committed to genuine equality for negroes.

Is much easier to integrate a lunch counter then it is to guarantee an annual income for instance to get rid of poverty for negroes and all people it's much easier to integrate bus then it is to make genuine integration reality and quality education a reality in our schools it is much easier to integrate even a public part then it is to get rid of slums.

And think we are in a new era a new phase of the struggle where we have moved from a struggle for decency which cauterize our struggle for 10 or 12 years to a struggle for genuine equality. 

And this is where we are getting resistance because there were never any intention to go this far, people were reacting to Bull Connor and to Jim Clark rather than acting in good faith for the realization of genuine equality....

America freed the slaves in 1863... but gave the salves no land or nothing in reality to get started on, at the same time America was given away millions of acres land in the west and Midwest which meant that there was a willingness to give the white peasants from Europe an economic base, and yet it refuse to give its Black peasants from Africa who came here involuntary in changes and had work free for 244 years any kind of economic base. 

So emancipation for the negro was really "freedom" to hunger, freedom to winds and reigns of heaven, it was freedom without food to eat or land to cultivate and therefore it was freedom and famine at the same time and when white Americans tell the negro to lift himself by himself by his  own bootstraps they don't look over the legacy of slavery and segregation I believe we odd to all we can and seek to life ourselves by our own bootstraps but its a cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he odd to pick himself up by his own bootstraps and many negroes by thousands and millions have been left bootless as a result of all of these years of oppression and as a result of a society that deliberately made his color a stigma and something worthless and degrading....

There are three evils in our nation it's not only racism, but economic exploitation and poverty would be one then militarization. And think in a sense... these three are...together and weren't get rid of one without getting rid of the other.

I must confess... that dream that I had that day has in many points turned into a nightmare.... I had to analyze many things over the last few years, and I come to see that we have many more difficult days ahead and some of the old optimism was a little superficial and it now must be tempered with a solid realism.

The war... strengthen the military industrial complex of our country, and its made our job much more difficult because i think we could go along with some programs if we didn't have this war on our hands, that would cause people to adjust to new developments just as they did in the south they said they'll never ride the bus with us blood will flow in the streets they wouldn't go to school all of these things but when people came to see they had to do it because the law insisted they finally adjusted and I think white people all over this country will adjust once the nation makes it clear that in schools and housing, we got to learn to live together as brothers.

...Now we're confronting issues that  cannot be solved without costing the nation billions of dollars  now I think this is where we're getting our greatest resistance they may put on many other things, but we can't get ride of slums and poverty, without costing the nation something.