King Day Participants to Celebrate Historic Shift in Nation’s Politics

by James Parks, Nov 15, 2008

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker and Rep. John Conyers reflect on Martin Luther King Jr.’s support for workers.

As the United States prepares to inaugurate its first African American president, hundreds of union and civil rights activists will celebrate and honor the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., who helped pave the way for this historic shift in the nation’s politics.

During the annual AFL-CIO King Day celebration, held Jan. 15–19, 2009, in New Orleans, participants will examine what the 2008 election means for our nation and working families and give back through community service in a city that continues to suffer from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, which hit three years ago.  

AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker says King’s legacy is directly linked to the political actions of people of color and union members. She reminds us that King often tied the civil rights and union rights movements as one in the same.  

On the King holiday, Jan. 19, union members at the celebration in New Orleans and across the country will deliver a strong message to the new Congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act. The bill, which would give workers the freedom to make their own decision about whether and how to form a union so they can bargain for a better life, is one of the key civil rights issues of our time, Holt Baker says. The best way for workers of all colors to advance, she adds, is through a union contract.    

Speaking at the NAACP national convention in July, Holt Baker echoed the remarks by Sen. Barack Obama, who told the convention:

What Dr. [Martin Luther] King and [former NAACP Executive Director] Roy Wilkins understood is that it doesn’t matter if you have the right to sit at the front of the bus if you can’t afford the bus fare. It doesn’t matter if you have the right to sit at the lunch counter if you can’t afford the lunch. 

 Holt Baker says: 

What they understood is that so long as Americans are denied the decent wages and good benefits and fair treatment that they deserve, the dream for which so many gave so much will remain out of reach; that to live up to our founding promise of equality for all, we have to make sure that opportunity is open to all. 

This year, the participants will dedicate two days to community service projects in the Crescent City because the residents of New Orleans still need help rebuilding their communities. Despite big promises from President Bush, his administration has all but ignored the plight of the thousands of poor and working people who lost everything they had. Instead, union and community leaders say the Bush administration is using the rebuilding effort to promote its conservative agenda and to push poor people out of New Orleans.

Says Robert “Tiger” Hammond, president of the Greater New Orleans AFL-CIO:

It’s a shame. The federal government failed its responsibility. Here they spend $11 billion a month [on the war in Iraq] and they can’t give $18 billion to rebuild the Lower 9th Ward and St. Bernard Parish. It’s been horrible—the negligence and mishandling of funds. 

For more information on the King Day celebration, please contact Eva Walton in the AFL-CIO Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Department at ewalton@aflcio.org or by phone at 202-637-5274. Download a registration form here. Find out more about King and the union movement here.  

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