Marching forward: A delegation of 20 ILWU members attended the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Memphis sanitation strike and the assassination of Civil Rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
A delegation of 20 ILWU members traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, where they spent several days honoring the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. who was assassinated 50 years ago during a bitter strike by sanitation workers on April 4, 1968.
The three-day event was cosponsored by AFSCME, the union that represented sanitation workers then and now in Memphis, and the Church of God in Christ – the largest African-American Pentecostal church in the United States.
Dr. King spoke at the Mason Temple in Memphis on April 3, 1968, where he delivered his famous “Mountain Top” speech on the evening before he was murdered while standing on the balcony outside his room at the Lorraine Motel.
The event was named “I AM 2018,” a historical reference to the now-famous slogan used by the Memphis sanitation strikers in 1968, who carried signs declaring: “I am a man.”
Mountain Top conference
Hundreds of union members and civil rights activists started gathering in Memphis on April 2nd in order to attend a two-day conference that explored King’s legacy. The event was held at the Mason Temple and included panel discussions with academics, labor and religious leaders, elected officials, Civil Rights movement icons and surviving members of the 1968 sanitation strike. The event also included an activist training where participants met in small groups to develop campaign strategies based on a range of different scenarios presented by trainers.
Speakers at the conference included the Reverends Jesse Jackson and James Lawson, Congresswoman Karen Bass from Los Angeles, AFSCME International President Lee Saunders, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, UNITE-HERE International Vice President and former head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Maria Elena Durazo, Meh-Ling Ho-Shing, a survivor of the shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School and CNN host Van Jones.
The conference featured panels on criminal justice reform, poverty, the struggle faced by American workers and the intersection of labor, faith and civil rights organizations.
“I AM 2018 isn’t just a reflection on the past; it’s a call to action for the future,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders. “Dr. King and the Memphis strikers knew that you can’t achieve economic justice without racial justice. And yet, 50 years after Dr. King’s Mountaintop speech, working people are still fighting those same fights.”
“One of the lessons I took home is that it doesn’t matter what the laws say,” said Local 19’s Ron Thomas. “What’s important is that people come together. It’s through collective action that we have power. That’s how things get changed.”
The three-headed monster
A common theme emerging in many of the discussion panels was that a more expansive view of King’s politics is needed today, going beyond activism that challenged segregation and Black disenfranchisement. While the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act are often portrayed as the culmination of King’s work, many conference speakers emphasized that racism was just one part of the “three-headed monster” that King spoke about. The remaining two-heads were poverty and militarism. For King, ending segregation and winning voting rights for Black Americans was only the beginning. He fought hard to raise the minimum wage and decried the injustice suffered by millions of Americans who worked full time but lived in poverty due to meager wages and benefits.
“Our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality,” King said in an address to the Memphis sanitation workers at a rally in March, 1968. “What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger?”
King also became increasingly vocal in his opposition to the war in Vietnam. He believed the vast resources devoted to the war had stripped-away funding that should have been used to eliminate poverty and suffering at home.
Mountain Top speech anniversary
Mountaintop anniversary: On the evening of April 3rd, ILWU members joined with nearly 4,000 people at the Mason Temple on the anniversary of Dr. King’s famous Mountaintop speech. In the back row from left to right: Vincent Washington, Local 10 President Melvin Mackay, Local 10 Secretary-Treasurer Farless Dailey, Derrick Muhammad, Trevor McCoy; Seated: Vanetta Hamlin (left) and Pamela Grove.
A special commemoration of Dr. King’s famous “Mountain Top speech” was held on the evening of April 3rd at the Mason Temple. The speech is seen by many as being prophetic because he alluded to his own death and assassination the following day:
“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life; longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the Promised Land. So I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”
The final sentence of King’s speech quotes the Civil War era song, The Battle Hymn of the Republic, which many have interpreted as call to action by King to complete his unfinished work in the struggle for Black freedom.
The speakers at the event included two of King’s children. His daughter, Reverend Bernice King, spoke first and revealed that her father told her mother on the day of his assassination that the title of his next address was going to be “America May Go to Hell.”
Bernice King explained, “As I look at the landscape of our world today, America may still go to hell. We have not, in 50 years, dealt with, as daddy\ challenged us to deal with, the last vestiges of racism. We must repent because daddy challenged us to deal with a second evil: poverty, which we have refused to confront in this nation.”
She went on to say that militarism “has robbed us of the necessary resources to address the social injustices and the social ills and the social discrepancies in our nation,” noting that her father said countries who spend more money on military than social advancement are “rapidly approaching a spiritual death.”
She was followed by Dr. King’s eldest son, Martin Luther King III, who praised the efforts of Black Lives Matter, the Me Too Movement and the students at Parkland High School for carrying his father’s work forward. He told the crowd to remain strong.
“We’ve come much too far from where we started. You see, nobody ever told us that our roads would be easy, but I know God didn’t bring us this far to leave us.”
They shared the stage with Ambassador Andrew Young, who was standing next to King when he was shot.
“The Africans say you aren’t dead until people stop calling your name,” Young told the audience. “I’ve been to over 120 countries and there has never been a place where I am not asked about Martin Luther King.”
Paul Chavez, the oldest son of Cesar Chavez also spoke at the event, saying that the struggle against injustice must continue and be carried-on by future generations.
Local 10 President Melvin Mackay attended the events and said, “So much of King’s work remains unfinished. I’m sure that King would have loved to see the election of Barack Obama, but he would have also been among the first to speak out against today’s police brutality, or the fact that poverty rates for= Black Americans are still as high today as they were 50 years ago. He would be marching to promote unions and fighting to raise the minimum wage so that millions of workers wouldn’t have to live in poverty.”
“The last few days have been enlightening,” said Local 94 member Fran Grove. “There is still so much to be done as union members and as community members. If we come together we can make Martin Luther King’s dream a reality.”
March and Rally
Memphis March: On April 4th the ILWU delegation marched with 10,000 community members and union workers from all over the country to remember Dr. King. The march started at the AFSCME hall and proceeded through Memphis to the Mason Temple. Local 19 members Jerome Johnson (left) and Ron Thomas. In the background are Local 502 Casual Stephanie Dobler and Local 23 President Dean McGrath.
The events concluded on April 4th, when an estimated 10,000 people participated in a rally and march through downtown Memphis. It began in the morning outside the AFSCME union hall with a diverse crowd composed of participants from across the country and around the world.
Secretary-Treasurer Willie Adams was among many speakers at the event. He was joined on stage by Senator Bernie Sanders, U.S. Representative Shelia Jackson Lee, Reverend William Barber who has revived King’s Poor People’s Campaign, musical artists Common and Shelia E. and many trade union leaders.
Adams spoke about King’s visit to the Local 10 hall in San Francisco a few months before his assassination. He talked about the struggles facing American workers, including recent attempts to undermine the rights of workers to have unions. “You don’t have to go overseas to fight for people’s rights,” Adams said, echoing one of Kings central themes. “We’ve got workers struggling right here at home. You can stay here and fight for the working class.”
He then challenged those in attendance to recommit themselves to action when they returned home. “What are you going to do when you leave here today to help move Dr. King’s legacy forward?”
Other ILWU members who attended the I AM 2018 event were Local 10 President Melvin Mackay, Local 10 Secretary-Treasurer Farless Dailey, Local 10 members Vanetta Hamlin, Vincent Washington, Derrick Muhammad and Trevor McCoy; Local 13 President Mark Mendoza, Local 19 members Jerome Johnson, Julia Bump, Ron Thomas and Tyrone Harvey; Local 23 President Dean McGrath, Local 23 members Phyllis Hamilton, and Matt Chambers; Local 52 Vice President Gabriel Prawl; Local 94 member Fran Grove; ILWU Canada Secretary-Treasurer Bob Dhaliwal, ILWU Local 502 Secretary-Treasurer Cara Kerins, Local 502 Casuals Isacc Baidoo and Stephanie Dobler.
