On Monday, January 17, 2011, we will celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday which was enacted by Congress in 1986 as a federal holiday. This was in part to celebrate Dr. King life and to recognize him for what he did with his life serving others.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. Both his father and grandfather were Baptist Ministers. Dr King is well known for his role in the Civil Rights movement in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s; however, he was also an activist for union members who were struggling to be recognized.
After Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1, 1955, for failing to give up her seat on a bus to a white male in Montgomery, Alabama, Dr. King helped organize a boycott that lasted for approximately thirteen months. During this time the more than 17,000 blacks who resided in Montgomery refused to ride a bus. Because of the financial impact to the city and the decision that was handed down by the Supreme Court forced the Montgomery Bus Company to accept integration, thus the boycott came to a ceased in December 1956.
In 1963, Dr. King stood with members of organized labor including the UAW, International Ladies Garment Workers, when they met with President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson at the White House (see photo below):
From left: Whitney Young, National Urban League; Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Southern Christian Leadership Conference; John Lewis, Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee; Rabbi Joachim Prinz, American Jewish Congress; Dr. Eugene P. Donnaly, National Council of Churches; A. Philip Randolph, AFL-CIO vice president; Kennedy; Walter P. Reuther, UAW; Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, rear, and Roy Wilkins, NAACP.
On several occasions in early 1968, Dr. King traveled to Memphis and stood with black sanitation workers who walked off the job because their employer failed to recognize their union (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees AFSCME). At this time black sanitation workers earned $1.70 and hour and the city failed to listen to ongoing grievances that dealt with deplorable work conditions and a request to increase their salaries to $2.35 an hour, overtime pay and merit promotions regardless of race.
King came back to Memphis on Wednesday, April 3, 1968, to address a rally to pressure city officials to negotiate a compromise solution to the strike. That night, at the Mason Temple which was packed with over 10,000 black workers and residents, ministers, white union members, white liberals, and students, Dr. King delivered what would turn out to be his last speech. He emphasized the linked fate of the civil rights and labor movements:
Memphis Negroes are almost entirely a working people. Our needs are identical with labor's needs -- decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community. That is why Negroes support labor's demands and fight laws which curb labor. That is why the labor-hater and labor-baiter is virtually always a twin-headed creature spewing anti-Negro epithets from one mouth and anti-labor propaganda from the other mouth.
The next day, James Earl Ray assassinated King as he stood on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Hotel.
