‘We Are One’ rallies mark King’s legacy on workers’ rights

Rally in Indiana Photo by Chris McTaggart

“Let us rise up tonight with a greater readiness. Let us stand with a greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.”

– Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Memphis, Tenn., April 3, 1968 

From coast to coast thousands of people from all walks of life marched, rallied and recalled the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4 under the banner “We Are One.”

The rallies, prayer vigils, teach-ins and other events were held in all 50 states to protest the attacks on workers’ collective bargaining rights and the American Dream.

King was killed April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tenn., while supporting a strike by the city’s sanitation workers, public employees who were seeking a contract and better working conditions.  

It was King’s vigorous support for workers’ rights that demonstrators invoked as they called for an end to today’s attacks on working families and the middle class by corporate-backed politicians.

“The labor movement," King said at an AFL-CIO convention in 1965, “was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress ... and above all, new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life.”

Today working families are under assault from governors and state legislatures seeking to take away collective bargaining rights for public employees, gut funding for public education and other vital services, and increase taxes on seniors and the middle class while cutting taxes for corporate America.

And in state after state, these politicians and their corporate donors are being met with fierce opposition from constituents and community groups who are fed up with the growing economic inequality their policies promote.

UAW members wore red to work, participated in teach-ins, conducted worksite voter registration drives and observed moments of silence to remember Dr. King. They also joined with members from every U.S. labor union, community organization members and faith groups in “We Are One” rallies Monday.

The activists promise to continue to challenge lawmakers on the streets, in the courts and at the ballot box as recalls and referendums mount against anti-worker legislators.

As Dr. King said in his address at the UAW’s 25^th Anniversary Dinner:

“Social progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals. Without this hard work, time itself becomes the ally of the insurgent and primitive forces of social stagnation. So in order to realize the American dream of economic justice and of the brotherhood of man, men and women all over the nation must continue to work for it.”