February Marks 44th Anniversary of Historic Memphis Sanitation Strike
February is Black History Month and one of the noteworthy events in African American history is the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike that began Feb. 11, 1968. It was on that day that, after years of discrimination and injustice, the African American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., began their strike for economic justice and dignity. They sought to join AFSCME Local 1733.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. championed the workers’ cause. Two months later, King was gunned down in Memphis as he prepared to lead a massive demonstration with the striking workers.
Click here to see the AFSCME video “I’m a Man” that looks at the strike and King’s murder and includes interviews with the striking workers and here for an excerpt featuring comments from several of the workers honored at a White House ceremony last year.
Holt Baker: Collective Action Key Tool to Building King’s Dream into Reality
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Most people remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legendary 1963 Washington, D.C, “I Have a Dream” speech. But what most don’t know, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said at the AFL-CIO’s Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and National Conference in Detroit, is that “the seeds of Dr. King’s dream were sown first,” in the Motor City.
First in the speech he gave in June in Detroit, and later in his more widely known speech in Washington, Dr. King described his dream, the dream that one day the white sons of former slave owners and the black sons of those who had been enslaved would live together as brothers, judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their characters.
Yet we know that Dr. King’s dream was not merely a dream about friendship, not some story about two people communing across a great economic divide. His dream was about true equality—economic, political and social justice.
During yesterday’s opening ceremony, Holt Baker reminded the more than 550 labor and civil rights activists and leaders that King knew that “a chief tool for freedom and progress for all people was collective action”:
whether as a labor union in the workplace or as nonviolent civil disobedience in the shared spaces of this country…whether at a lunch counter or in a park near Wall Street.
She also noted the long partnership by the union movement and the civil rights movement and his close relationship with the UAW. But although the AFL-CIO endorsed the principles behind the March on Washington, the federation did not endorse the march itself. Read the rest of this entry »
AFL-CIO’s King Observance Focuses on Economic, Social Justice
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In Detroit—a historic crossroads for both the labor and civil rights movements—more than 550 activists and leaders of those movements will honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the AFL-CIO’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and National Conference.
The Jan. 12-16 observance will serve as an opportunity to recommit to working toward King’s cornerstone goals of economic and social justice. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker says union, civil rights and community activists can honor King’s legacy by:
Redoubling our efforts to make real his prophecy our time—his message of justice for all, his message that the American Dream is for all of us.
The conference opens tonight and includes an awards presentation to civil rights veteran and lawmaker Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.). Conyers, who has been in office since 1964, is one of the founding members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
AFSCME’s Celebrating 75 Years of Fighting for Workers
AFSCME is celebrating its 75 anniversary with a yearlong series of events. The observances include a traveling exhibit of the union’s 75 years of fighting for workers’ rights and the middle class from its founding in Wisconsin in 1936 to today. Says AFSCME President Gerald McEntee:
For 75 years, our members have worked to build a strong middle class and keep the American Dream alive for every working American. We have a proud history fighting for collective bargaining rights, for civil rights, for women’s rights and for the vital public services that Americans depend upon in good times and in bad.
The exhibit, which will be displayed at union meetings, conventions and other events, includes an examination of the Memphis sanitation workers‘ strike, during which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was killed while supporting the workers; the union’s fight for pay equity for women; the drive to pass health care reform; action to protect Social Security; and the most recent battles for workers’ rights in Wisconsin and Ohio.
Other activities are planned, including a special soon-to-be-released video and website.
Martin Luther King Jr., Friend of Labor
This is an excerpt of a cross-post from the American Constitution Society Blog by Angelia Wade, associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO. The post coincided with the recent opening of the King National Memorial.
When he was assassinated in April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis lending his support to striking garbage sanitation workers who were seeking to have their union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), recognized so they could negotiate a contract that raised their standard of living.
Dr. King’s support of the labor movement as a pathway to better jobs and justice did not just begin in 1968. Throughout much of his life, he advocated as much for economic equality as he did for racial equality. He once stated that it did no good for a man to eat at an integrated lunch counter if that same man could not afford to buy a hamburger at the establishment.
Dr. King said the labor movement was a key vehicle for people of color to gain economic equality. He often extolled the benefits and successes of organized labor. In October 1965, in an address to the Illinois AFL-CIO, he said many forget that it was the labor movement that
Revive the Dream
On the eve of the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C., AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee Saunders writes in this cross-post from AFSCME why the nation needs to revive King’s dream.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans are expected to gather this weekend in Washington, D.C., for the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. Few can doubt that this is an extraordinary and historic moment. Only four other Americans—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt—have been given this honor: a national memorial on the hallowed grounds of our National Mall. As the first memorial to honor an African American, and the first to honor an individual who was never elected to high office, the memorial for Dr. King stands as a symbol of progress and purpose, dedicated to a man whose vision and courage transformed our nation and gave hope to the world.
The dedication this weekend also coincides with the 48th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was at that march where Dr. King delivered the speech that proclaimed his vision of an America that would live up to the words of our founders and the ideals of the Declaration of Independence.
Don’t Miss Live Webcast of National Symposium on Jobs and Justice Aug. 26
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You can be a part of the national symposium on jobs, justice and the American dream, hosted by the AFL-CIO and The King Center, on Aug. 26, two days before the official dedication of the historic Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C.
Just RSVP here for our live webcast of the symposium Friday from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET.
Submit a question for our panels of experts, activists and workers here. Panelists will select from among the questions submitted. The first panel, “Jobs and the American Dream,” begins at 9 a.m. The second panel, “Justice and the American Dream,” begins at 11 a.m.
AFL-CIO, King Center Symposium on Jobs and Justice Set for Aug. 26
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The AFL-CIO and the King Center is hosting a national symposium on jobs, justice and the American Dream on Aug. 26, two days before the official dedication of the historic Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C.
We will live webcast the two featured panels of notable civil rights activists, worker-activists, elected leaders, academics and young people. We’ll let you know the webcast URL next week.
You can participate in this historic symposium by submitting a question for the panelists. Just click here to ask your question. Panelists will select from among the questions submitted.
Civil Rights and Unions Go Hand-in-Hand, Says Ky. Activist
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J.W. Cleary, 55, says he has spent most of his adult life “with a union card in one hand and an NAACP card in the other.”
“Unions and the NAACP go hand-in-hand,” says the Paducah, Ky., United Steelworkers (USWA) member and longtime local NAACP president. “The NAACP fights for equality. In a union, everybody is equal.”
Cleary belongs to USW Local 550 at the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant. The huge facility enriches uranium for nuclear power plants. Cleary says he learned the value of unions long before he went to work at the factory known locally as the “atomic plant.”
When I was a kid, my daddy was a waiter in a nightclub, and he didn’t make much money. Then he got a job at a chemical plant at Calvert City, near Paducah. He was the first African American hired. He joined the union and started making good money. The union also gave him job security and a voice at work.
Memphis Ceremonies Complete Sanitation Workers Hall of Fame Induction
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Tomorrow in Memphis, the 1,300 Memphis sanitation workers whose 1968 strike for the right to join a union and collectively bargain was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last campaign, will be honored in the second part of their induction into the U.S. Department of Labor Hall of Fame.
The ceremony at the University of Memphis follows an April event in Washington, D.C., where several of the surviving members of AFSCME Local 1733 met with President Obama
In a column today in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis who will induct the lead the induction activities, writes
We will honor the sanitation workers for standing up for their values and demanding fair treatment for those who perform this country’s toughest jobs. We will honor them for showing their fellow Americans the importance of nonviolent protest as a vehicle for social change. And we will honor them for inspiring a movement to help end the era of Jim Crow and de facto segregation.
Over the years, the Labor Hall of Fame has honored individual workers, but this is the first a time a group of workers has been honored.
