Public Employee Press

February is Black History Month
Remembering King

By DIANE S. WILLIAMS

At DC 37’s annual celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, more than 300 pairs of eyes were transfixed by the documentary “At the River I Stand.”

The film recounts King’s last days and his courageous campaign to win dignity and social justice for striking Memphis sanitation workers in DC 37’s national union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

“I came to show solidarity, learn our history as a union, see how far we have come and understand how our union has grown so powerful,” said Local 1070 member Elizabeth Luna at the Jan. 10 commemoration.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning civil rights leader was born Jan. 15, 1929, and was slain 40 years ago on April 4, 1968. Dr. King, who saw economic rights and civil rights as inseparable, was shot at a critical moment in the nonviolent insurrection he led for equality for African Americans and poor people.

The film chronicles AFSCME’s fight to organize the Black sanitation workers, improve their perilous working conditions and raise their welfare-level wages. It documents the role of the strike as a catalyst in the labor and civil rights movements to end Jim Crow oppression and right economic injustices.

Economic justice
In the spring of 1968, AFSCME leader Jerry Wurf enlisted Dr. King in the union’s fight to press an unyielding Memphis mayor and City Council to recognize the union. By the strikers’ second march — with King at the forefront — peaceful demonstrators faced riot police with guns, water hoses and fierce dogs.

In support of the strikers on a stormy April 3 night, Dr. King delivered his ominous speech, “I Have Been to the Mountaintop,” in a crowded Memphis church. The next afternoon he was assassinated.

AFSCME organized a silent march four days later. In a historic display of union solidarity, DC 37 sent the largestAFSCME delegation, which included young firebrand Associate Director Lillian Roberts along with hundreds of members.

DC 37 Political Director Wanda Williams chaired the Jan. 10 event, which the union’s Political Action and Organizing departments co-sponsored. A recognition ceremony for DC 37’s volunteer member organizers and a candlelit observance followed the film.

“We are going to invoke the spirit of Dr. King and the spirit of Memphis and say ‘No’ to privatization,” said Organizing Director Edgar deJesús. Building on the film’s powerful message, deJesús linked King’s civil rights era activism to change America for the good with DC 37’s current drive to organize Parks Dept. workers at the privatized parks conservancies. He said, “Those workers also deserve the benefits and protections that come with being members of this mighty union, DC 37 and AFSCME!”