SEARCH
Unions Honor King’s Legacy With Gifts to Educate Children in Need |
|
 |
|
All this week, the union movement has been honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. One of the most long-lasting actions may be providing a new generation of children with some of the tools they need to achieve the economic equality King fought for during his life.
As part of the annual AFL-CIO Martin Luther King Day celebration, the federation and member unions, especially the Transport Workers (TWU), donated 30 computers to schools in the Memphis area, including an entire computer lab to Caldwell Elementary School, where 96 percent of the pupils are considered disadvantaged. AFSCME also donated $15,000 worth of clothing, toys and school supplies to three Head Start centers.
The Electrical Workers (IBEW) wired the computer lab, and the donations had the full support of the AFT and the National Education Association.
As AFL-CIO President John Sweeney says:
Working people across the country know that civil and worker rights go hand in hand and that without the tools for a proper education, students can never go on to attain the kind of economic equality in which King and other leaders believed.
Caldwell Principal Lawanda Harris (see video) says the donation is right in line with the kind of things Dr. King would be doing if he were alive today:
One of the greatest civil rights one could have is access to equal education.
Each year, participants in the King Day celebration put their beliefs into action by reaching out to the communities to help people who need help to get ahead. This year, in addition to the donations to the schools, the 1,000 participants in the AFL-CIO Memphis events also are working on projects as varied as repairing and painting schools and delivering paper goods to community organizations.
AFSCME President Gerald McEntee says the union donated the school supplies because:
Our nation has a vested interest in the future of these kids. We have a vested interest in how well-prepared they are to learn and to lead.
But we also believe that we have a moral obligation to do everything we can for them–because they are truly our children. We’ve been entrusted with their care, and we must treat them as the national treasure that they are.
The King Day celebration is being held in Memphis on the 40th anniversary of King’s death. King came to Memphis in 1968 to support a strike by sanitation workers seeking to gain recognition of their union, AFSCME Local 1733. He was assassinated April 4, 1968, in Memphis during that strike.
The donations bring to mind a speech by King less than a month before he died, when he told the strikers that economic equality was necessary to make real the promise of integration.
What does it profit one to be able to attend an integrated school, when he doesn’t earn enough money to buy his children school clothes?
Edward Wytkind, president of the AFL-CIO Transportation Trades Department, says the King Holiday is a time to renew our commitment to fight the battles that need fighting:
Martin Luther King Jr.’s message of courage and conviction is no less relevant today than it ever was. His prophetic teachings continue to inspire generations of Americans to fight for social and economic justice, for better lives and for a better America.
Historian Michael Honey, who is taking part in the events this weekend, published a book on the sanitation workers’ strike, Going Down Jericho Road, which is available here. During the strike, workers carried signs proclaiming “I Am A Man.” A poster of that image is available here.
No Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
