Honoring Dr. King by Standing With Workers

On a cold evening in April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped onto the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He was there for one reason: to stand with workers who had decided they could no longer accept injustice as the price of earning a living.

The sanitation workers of Memphis, represented by AFSCME, were mostly Black men doing some of the city’s most dangerous work. They labored long hours for poverty wages, often without proper safety equipment. Many were routinely demeaned and addressed as “boy.” When two workers were crushed to death by a malfunctioning garbage truck, something shifted. The workers walked off the job.

Their strike was not only about pay or benefits. It was about dignity. Their signs carried a declaration that echoed far beyond Memphis: “I AM A MAN.”

Dr. King understood exactly what was at stake. To him, civil rights and labor rights were not separate struggles. Economic justice was racial justice. Dignity at work was a human right. That is why he came to Memphis. That is why he lent his voice to the workers’ cause.

The night before his assassination, Dr. King spoke at Mason Temple. He talked about sacrifice, about faith, and about seeing the promised land even if he might not reach it himself. His words would become part of history, but so would the reason he was there.

More than half a century later, the fight he stood for continues. Progress has been made, but the promised land remains unfinished. On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, AFSCME honors his legacy not only by remembering his words but by continuing his work. Standing with workers. Standing for dignity. Standing together.