On the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., many politicians will praise his legacy even as they act in ways that betray his ideals.
Yohuru Williams, a professor of history at Fairfield University in Connecticut, reminds us that Dr. King was a strong advocate of labor unions because he understood that they protect the rights of working people by demanding fair pay and safe working conditions.
I was a small speck in the crowd when Dr. King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington in 1963. Most of the chartered buses that brought hundreds of thousands of supporters to hear Dr. King that day were sponsored by labor unions. The theme of the day was “Jobs and Justice.”
Williams writes:
“Teachers, then and now, invoked the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and the words of Martin Luther King to support a deeper investment in America’s public schools including more robust budgets for instruction, greater interventions for English language learners, and fair compensation. Their appeals for politicians to live up to the spirit of the movement fail to move political leaders like Rahm Emmanuel and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder whose positions on high stakes testing, teachers unions, and insistence on school closures represent the most egregious form of historical amnesia concerning the continuing relevance of Dr. King’s message.”
As the U.S. Supreme Court prepares to decide a case intended to cripple labor unions, we know that Dr. King’s prophetic warnings will be weighed too. Will working people have a chance to get middle-class jobs, or will they be stripped of any job protections, left to work at the whim of faceless corporations and heartless politicians?
Let it not be forgotten why Dr. King was in Memphis when he was murdered. He was there to advocate for the right of sanitation workers to form a union.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Our political leaders are all promoting “the gig economy” now. Low wage jobs without even the bare minimum worker protections, like workers comp, wage, hour and safety regs, and unemployment insurance.
Forget collective bargaining rights. They don’t even want people to have the legal status and protection that comes with being an “employee”.
At the same time they’re working as hard as they can to eradicate labor unions, they are ALSO lobbying to dismantle the basic legal protections non-union workers have now.
This is a deliberate, planned race to the bottom.
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Intentional “historical amnesia” is a current epidemic in textbooks and plutocratic-owned publishing. A book, recently released by Scholastic Inc., portrays a slave baking a cake, that will be eaten by George Washington. The message is that slaves cheerfully worked to serve their masters. Left out from the body of the work, is that the slave, described as a “chef”, was so happy,…. he escaped. His young daughter, featured as a smiling, happy, child, because she was included in the work, remained a slave of Martha Washington until her death. (A Birthday Cake for George Washington)
Can we assume minority children are equally happy being subjected to 266% more tests than their suburban counterparts? What do you think, Roland Fryer? (Mother Jones found otherwise.)
Do kids in suburban Boston schools, where Fryer’s children attend, deserve an enriched curriculum while, children in urban Boston are better off filling in boxes of data, for test and tech moguls?
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President Obama campaigned as a labor friendly leader, but core of his policies have been corporatist. In 2008 he courted labor and got a great deal of support. He told teachers he was against bubble tests, and that he supported education. Labor bought the labor supporting Obama package hook, line and sinker.
Once in office, labor got a taste of the real Obama who may cite Dr. King in speeches, but whose actions more mirror the theories of Milton Friedman. Our president guided the Wall St. bailout and failed to prosecute any of the guilty parties. When Scott Walker attacked teachers in Wisconsin, Obama’s lame comment was, “I guess you’d call it union busting.” While the ACA helped numerous citizens, it was a windfall for Big Pharma and the insurance industry. He, more than any other president, has paved the way for charter expansion. He has shown total partiality to them in all his appointments and endeavors, and he has made little effort to regulate the industry.
Now as he is ready to deliver another blow to labor in the form of the TPP, Obama is once again trying to cozy up to them. I’ve seen his act before. Like an abusive spouse, he tries “make amends” while he prepares another assault. Like an abusive spouse, you can never believe the lies. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/03/obama-butters-up-labor-because-theyre-about-to-lose-on-trade-116121
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Retired teacher,
When thousands of working people surrounded the Wisconsin Capitol to protest Scott Walker’s assault on unions, Obama never showed. He was in Miami with Jeb Bush, celebrating a turnaround school (that was on the state closing list).
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Obama is just another preppy boy who went to private schools. He has no clue, except for appointing bozos.
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True all and unfortunately he will be the President who presided over the biggest dismantling of public education lead by Race to the top and sorry Arne Duncan. Yes he fooled us.we must not let others do the same .
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“dianeravitch
January 18, 2016 at 10:41 am
Retired teacher,
When thousands of working people surrounded the Wisconsin Capitol to protest Scott Walker’s assault on unions, Obama never showed. He was in Miami with Jeb Bush, celebrating a turnaround school (that was on the state closing list).”
I still wonder if the Obama Administration made a deal- the Administration wouldn’t attack GOP governors or defend public schools/employees if the GOP governors would support the Common Core.
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Obama ran on HOPE, HOPE won and quickly disappeared as he appointed the HOPELESS to his cabinet.
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This is the problem with today’s new workers. I keep hearing from them that we don’t need unions because we have laws in place to protect workers now. What these clueless sheep don’t realize is that once the unions are gutted the ALEC boys will gut the laws next. Welcome to serfdom!
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They are already gutting the laws. Of course, new workers have no idea what they have lost since history and social studies are not required to be “college and career ready.” Since they all are buying the freedom of being a contract worker crap, it is obvious they have no idea what has been lost.
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I am one of those geeky types who always reads all those employment law posters employers are required to post in the lunchroom or other prominent place. I’ve noticed lately that a number of those posters have been taken down in our lunchroom. Some have been replaced by watered down versions, some are now just blank wall. Things that make you go hmm. I think we’ve already lost a number of employment protections.
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I think Martin Luther King Jr. would have wanted me to stay off of Twitter and the internet on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. He would have known how angry it makes me to see people claim that he would have supported whatever stance it is that they’re taking.
Martin Luther King Jr’s own son supports private school vouchers for Florida schools — http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/florida/2016/01/8588339/martin-luther-king-iii-makes-case-tax-credit-scholarships. Were MLK Jr. alive and well today, I think it is safe to say that his position on any number of issues would be a little more “it’s complicated” than people suggest.
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I agree with you, Tim. In fact, I would go as far as to say we ALL should get 100% tax credits for any donations we make to such worthy causes.
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It is worth noting King was assassinated in Memphis after traveling there to support job actions by sanitation workers. At issue was two tiered employment status based on race. Moving forward decades and we see SCOTUS likely setting up two tiered labor rights based on public v private status. Teachers now become second class citizens. SCOTUS will erase King’s sacrifice in one ruling. Go Bernie!
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It’s undeniable that Martin Luther King was pro union and that he supported unions during his lifetime. That’s a fact, not somebody’s supposition.
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Joe, I am not a historian, but I’m not even sure that your statement is accurate, at least not without qualifications. The Memphis sanitation strike, for example, was either ignored or even discouraged by white unions and white union leaders in Memphis. Again, “it’s complicated.”
But more to the point, a lot has happened in the intervening 53 years, and I don’t think it is unfair or insulting to assume he would have held a more nuanced position on some of these issues. I agree that he would have likely been generally supportive of unions.
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2old2teach, MathVale and Joe: beware of those saying one moment “not a historian” and then “proving” something by acting like an historian.
The “nuances” argument is typical rheephormista deflection and avoidance. Simply refer to the postings on this blog today, especially the one entitled “Paul Thomas on the Radical Dr. King.” Dr. Martin Luther King had lots of nuances about him, and so did others. Just one universe of subtleties should suffice for this comment: the relations between him and Malcolm X, and their public & private reactions one to the other, at various times regarding various issues, right up to the moment when first the latter and then the former were murdered. *Remembering that this also involved those supporting and following one or both of them, so the issues were, and in some sense still are, being contended many years later.*
Not plain enough? In MLK’s time rheephorm-style “choice” took the form of “segregation academies.” So labeled by their opponents, not—at least usually in public and proudly—by their supporters. He opposed “choice” and also strongly supported the contention that “separate is inherently unequal.”
Brought up to date, look at another posting on this blog today, “Do Vouchers Increase Integration?”
[start entire posting]
Answer to question: Of course not!
Count on the Friedman Foundation to prove that the world really is flat, despite what you may have heard. Sure enough, FF claims that vouchers lead to more integration, despite reams of evidence and research showing that vouchers and school choice increase segregation unless policies are in place to prevent it.
Here is a careful, research-based refutation of the Friedman Foundation’s assertions. There was a reason that Southern politicians supported school choice when they fought the Brown decision, and it wasn’t because they wanted integrated schools.
[end entire posting]
The whole approach of the heavyweights of self-styled “education reform” and their spin doctors and salespeople is to gut Dr. King of every substantive still-vital stand he had and reduce him to a money-making data point that looks and talks and acts nothing like the person he really was.
Don’t be surprised if some rheephormista claims that that infamous $ucce$$ Academy “got-to-go” list was a loving and universally applauded practice directly modeled on what Dr. King advocated for and practiced.
😎
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KrazyTA, I should have put a snark alert on my post. Because I did not refer to the article the comment comes off meaning something totally different than I intended.
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In fact, I can’t even find the reference that drove me to write what I did. It was something to do with corporations getting 100% tax credits for donating to a fund that made these kind of vouchers available.
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“The Memphis sanitation strike, for example, was either ignored or even discouraged by white unions and white union leaders in Memphis.”
What on earth does that have to do with whether or not Dr. King supported unions?
Joe is right. King is on record in numerous speeches and writings vocally and unequivocally in favor of unions.
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Dr. King worked closely with the AFL-CIO. The labor movement was his best ally and funded many of his activities. Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph were close to Dr. King and very in the forefront of integrating the labor movement.
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Incidentally, Tim, I don’t think Dr. King’s children are necessarily the best examples of what Dr. King himself would believe today. In fact, I think he would in some ways be mortified by them. They have tried to “own” his legacy in ways I am quite sure he never intended. I don’t think he gave his “I Have a Dream Speech” to hundreds of thousands on the National Mall intending that it should be copyrighted and profited from by his heirs.
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No one writes with such authority and depth about Dr. King like Yohuru Williams. What a thought provoking article! Thanks so much for sharing!
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I wonder what Dr. King would think of our teacher’s union and the way they are leading teachers now? I really have a hard time believing he’d support their approach to running our unions and destroying the profession. . .
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Which union? National or local? That’s the problem. The national unions are complacent and tainted by big money. At the local level, unions are simply a voice from the classroom – often ignored. Sadly, people indict both.
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