From everyday wins to extraordinary efforts, our members’ stories highlight the strength, solidarity, and impact of our union. Help us build a wall of truth: We may not be able to share every story, but every voice helps shape our union’s vision and our future.
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“No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they’d die for.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Fifty years ago, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning icon of the civil rights movement was murdered in Memphis while fighting for 1,300 black sanitation workers from AFSCME Local 1733. He gave his life for those workers. When […]
The question is not, “If I stop to help this man in need, what will happen to me?” The question is, “If I do not stop to help the sanitation workers, what will happen to them?” That’s the question.
We remember Dr. King and the sanitation workers for whom he gave his life. Dr. King’s belief in equality has not yet been realized. May we all take a moment today to consider how we can continue to work toward his dream.
Martin Luther King told the Memphis sanitation workers, “it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages.”
“Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality.” Martin Luther King, Jr., March 18, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee It rained in Memphis, Tennessee, on January 31, 1968. For about an hour. Twenty-two black sewer workers were sent home for the day, before the rain stopped. Their white coworkers stayed on the job. The […]