HUMAN RIGHTS – Nate Waters, Chair, Human Rights Committee
I AM 2018 Campaign Honors Dr. King, April 2–4
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated while fighting for the rights of sanitation workers in Memphis, TN on April 4, 1968.
This year marks the 50th anniversary of his death, which happened just two weeks before the start of the Poor People’s Campaign that he was to lead, along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. The anniversary is sparking a new Poor People’s Campaign.
Dr. King knew that the best anti-poverty program ever created was a union contract. He knew that civil rights and labor were two movements with one goal.
He famously asked, “What good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can’t buy a hamburger?” King encouraged all workers to join unions.
The timing of his assassination was no accident. Everyone knows that when workers organize, workers win.
On April 2-4, the UWUA will join with other labor unions and civil rights organizations in Memphis to honor Dr. King’s legacy and connect it and the sanitation strikers of 50 years ago to current issues facing our nation.
This I AM 2018 campaign gets its name from the strikers’ iconic slogan, “I AM A MAN.”