Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr spent a lifetime fighting for working people: for a recognition of the dignity of labor, demanding a living wage to lift all people out of poverty. His cause has become our cause in 2014 as Democrats are fighting for minimum wage increases and our president echoes the words of Dr. King: “… let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full time should have to live in poverty.”
In March, 1968, Dr. King was in Memphis to lend support to the striking sanitation workers. They were striking for better wages and working conditions:
On 1 February 1968, two Memphis garbage collectors, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck. Twelve days later, frustrated by the city’s response to the latest event in a long pattern of neglect and abuse of its black employees, 1,300 black men from the Memphis Department of Public Works went on strike. Sanitation workers, led by garbage-collector-turned-union-organizer, T. O. Jones, and supported by the president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), Jerry Wurf, demanded recognition of their union, better safety standards, and a decent wage.[…]
King himself arrived on 18 March to address a crowd of about 25,000 – the largest indoor gathering the civil rights movement had ever seen.
(From ThinkProgress)