by James Parks, Jan 14, 2008

In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. told striking sanitation workers that we all are “tied together in a single garment of destiny.”

“If one black person suffers, if one black person is down, we’re all down. It is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive slave wages.”

With studies showing that a shocking 45 percent of African Americans who were born in the late 1960s into middle-class families have fallen into the bottom 20 percent of income, more than 600 union and civil rights activists are gathering in Memphis this week to reaffirm their commitment to making King’s dream a reality.

The annual AFL-CIO King Day celebration Jan. 17–21 in Memphis—the city where King died 40 years ago while helping striking sanitation workers—will focus on taking political action, helping workers form unions and building coalitions to ensure that King’s dream becomes a reality. Click here to see several videos that chronicle King’s support of the strikers.

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker says:

In 1961, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. told the AFL-CIO convention that “when the Negro wins, labor wins,” and that is just as true now as it was then. He warned us that the forces that fought against unions also tried to keep Negroes from voting and in poverty.

Dr. King’s remarks are just as relevant today. He said, “Those who in the second half of the 19th century could not tolerate organized labor have had a rebirth of power and seek to regain the despotism of that era while retaining the wealth and privileges of the 20th century. Their target is labor, liberals and the Negro people.”

The big change is that the list of those most disdained by the ultraconservative right wing has only expanded. It no longer includes just labor, liberals and the Negro—it now includes new immigrants of all races, young people, gays and lesbians and the working poor, who are disproportionately single mothers and people of color.

It is precisely those on this list that we in the labor movement have aligned ourselves with in a coalition that will make possible the realization of the dream we all share for the economic and social justice Dr. King lived and died for.

The activists will celebrate King’s life by taking a look back at what the Memphis sanitation workers strike meant to working people and people of color. The 64-day strike ended with a union contract for some 1,300 members of AFSCME Local 1733. The strike is credited with reviving a dormant union movement in Memphis and initiating a wave of public employee union organizing in other parts of the South.

The activists will hear about the strike and its impact from speakers including the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was one of King’s aides; the Rev. James Lawson, Vanderbilt University distinguished professor, who helped the sanitation workers; Michael Honey, author of Going Down Jericho Road (available at The Union Shop Online™), which chronicles events in the strike and King’s assassination; and AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Bill Lucy, who was a union organizer during the strike.

On Friday, Lucy will lead a special roundtable discussion with veterans of the strike, including members of the clergy, community organizers and sanitation workers.

But the conference will not just look back—the participants will look forward to find ways to bolster the movement for economic and social justice. An entire afternoon of the conference will be devoted to political education and training.

Ronald Walters, a leading political analyst and professor at the University of Maryland, will discuss the importance of the 2008 elections for people of color, and AFL-CIO Political Director Karen Ackerman will address how workers can win in 2008. Participants also will spend almost four hours Friday afternoon in get-out-the vote training sessions.

Participants also will take a stand for workers’ rights with a candlelight vigil Friday night at the Shelby County Jail, where AFSCME is assisting workers who want to join a union.

The weekend will be devoted to community service projects designed to serving the community that King worked to help—the poor and disadvantaged. AFL-CIO President John Sweeney will present a computer lab paid for by union members to a local elementary school, and AFSCME and the Transport Workers (TWU) will make contributions to schools and the Head Start program.

The Rev. Al Sharpton and Holt Baker will headline a town hall meeting Saturday on the state of Dr. King’s dream.

Other speakers at the conference will include Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts, United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard and TWU President James Little.

Print This Article | E-Mail This Article | Comments (2)