Barack Obama is the Democratic presidential nominee. What a historical moment for our country! Growing up in Detroit and living through the civil rights era, I never thought I'd live to see this day. Sure, I heard family and friends talk about equal rights in public, but they changed their tune behind closed doors. That was okay. I couldn't condemn them for their prejudice because I understood they were raised to think that way, which motivated me to raise my children differently, as it did millions of other Americans. Our efforts have reaped results.
Two bloggers wrote posts that illustrated to me just how far we've come. This was written by Kvatch, who plans on voting for Barack Obama precisely because he's black:
Now before you get yourself in a tizzy-screaming at me about reverse racism or how I've reduced Obama down to one banal fact-think about this: The one inescapable truth is that Obama's perspective as president will be different than all who've preceded him, a truth that applies equally well to Senator Clinton. These presidential candidates simply aren't crusty old white guys. Their experience and their outlook are fundamentally different than a Bush, or a Reagan, a Kennedy, or a Johnson.
Whether or not Obama brings change is unimportant. He is change.
For all the change Obama represents, Ezra Klein is surprised by how predictable and normal it feels.
Obama's speech tonight was powerful, but then, most all of his speeches are. This address stood out less than I expected. It took me an hour to realize how extraordinary that was. I had just watched an African-American capture the Democratic nomination for the Presidency of the United States of America, and it felt...normal. Almost predictable. 50 years ago, African Americans often couldn't vote, and dozens died in the fight to ensure them the franchise. African-Americans couldn't use the same water fountains or rest rooms as white Americans. Black children often couldn't attend the same schools as white children. Employers could discriminate based on race. 50 years ago, African Americans occupied, in effect, a second, and lesser, country. Today, an African-American man may well become the president of the whole country, and it feels almost normal.
It was, to be sure, not entirely unpredicted. On March 31st, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. preached his final Sunday sermon. "We shall overcome," he said, "because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." Four days later, he was murdered. But 40 years later, his dream is more alive than he could have ever imagined. Not only might a black man be president, but at times, many forget to even be surprised by it.
Today marks the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's assassination in Memphis. King died fighting for labor and a living wage. He was there to support municipal sanitation workers who were striking for better pay, benefits and working conditions. King didn't die in vain. The strikers did ultimately win their strike and receive better pay, benefits and working conditions, which helped lift millions of other Americans into the middle class. However, the AFL-CIO reminds us that for all the good that came from that strike, labor rights and economic equality have been losing ground (which we know all too well here in Michigan):
Over the past three decades, however, this situation has taken a turn for the worse as both the number of jobs in manufacturing and the number of unionized jobs have declined sharply. In 1979, for example, manufacturing accounted for nearly one-quarter of all jobs in this country and about the same share of the total workforce was in a union. Today, only about one-in-10 jobs is in manufacturing, and roughly 13 percent of the workforce is in a union or represented by one at their workplace.
The decline in manufacturing employment reflects, in part, the country's massive and long-standing trade deficit. Instead of producing goods here, we now import a large share of the manufactured goods we consume.
Meanwhile, probably the most important reason for the simultaneous drop in unionization was corporate America's deliberate decision to adopt a more hostile attitude toward unions. Many firms have relocated plants overseas or in states with little union presence as part of a conscious effort to evade unions. [...]
Employers also regularly violate other aspects of the NLRA designed to protect workers' freedom to form unions. Research... has estimated that one-in-five workers actively involved in organizing a union can expect to be fired in the middle of a union organizing election.
And here in Michigan, we have the "right-to-work" crowd stirring the pot. These attacks on labor are discouraging, but as King often said, "We, as a people, will get to the promised land!"
Let me close by saying that I have the personal faith that mankind will somehow rise up to the occasion and give new directions to an age drifting rapidly to its doom. In spite of the tensions and uncertainties of this period something profoundly meaningful is taking place. Old systems of exploitation and oppression are passing away, and out of the womb of a frail world new systems of justice and equality are being born.
If Martin Luther King were alive today, I have no doubt he'd be openly critical of the economic inequality in our country. King believed all work has dignity and worth and it was a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages. It's up to us to continue his fight.
Martin Luther King III met with John Edwards at the King Center in Atlanta on January 19th, 2008. Following that meeting, he sent Edwards this letter praising him for speaking out for those without a voice. The highest praise comes at the end though. King tells Edwards, "My father would be proud."
We all know that Martin Luther King Jr. was a champion for civil rights, but how many of us know that he also was a strong supporter of unions and workers' rights? This is King as described by AFL-CIO Organizing Director Stewart Acuff when he spoke to the Electrical Workers earlier this year:
I would submit to you that Dr. King was a trade unionist. He believed in our movement and struggled for our movement. He knew and he preached that civil rights were inadequate without economic rights. Dr. King knew that our economic system allows a few to have too much power and wealth and workers to have too little, so he believed that we have a responsibility to struggle to push down wealth and power from those who have too much to those who have too little. That is why he was a trade unionist. His last great campaign was the Poor People's Campaign to organize America's poor to fight for economic justice and dignity.
The AFL-CIO is holding its 2008 Martin Luther King Jr. holiday observance in Memphis, Tennessee from Jan 17-21 to mark the 40th anniversary of the Memphis sanitation workers' strike. The strike was King's final campaign. He was assassinated in Memphis in 1968 while supporting these striking workers.
