MLK's legacy & renewed assaults on the workers & oppressed
http://www.workers.org/2011/us/mlk_0120/
Published Jan 15, 2011
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights, social justice and
peace activist who was martyred on April 4, 1968, was born 82 years
ago on Jan. 15. Since 1986 Dr. King's birthday has been commemorated
by a federal holiday on the third Monday of January. This year the
holiday falls on Jan. 17.
The recognition of Dr. King's birthday as a federal holiday was the
result of a nearly two-decade struggle waged by African-American
political leaders and artists. They held mass demonstrations on this
day every year and sponsored legislation in the U.S. Congress that
eventually was passed, even under the right-wing administration of
Ronald Reagan. Today federal, state and local offices as well as
banks and many educational institutions are closed, and literally
thousands of commemorations are held throughout the United States.
In 2011 the MLK federal holiday comes at a time when everything Dr.
King and the Civil Rights Movement fought for during the 1950s and
1960s is under attack by Wall Street and its surrogates in the
administration and Congress. Ruling-class propaganda that is relayed
daily through the corporate and government-sanctioned media is
specifically designed to reinforce the existing conditions of
exploitation and oppression against the working class in general.
A renewed round of attacks is taking place that seeks to blame the
growing budget deficits facing numerous states and cities on the
hard-won benefits of public sector employees, the unemployed and the
poor. The 2010 elections were ideologically rigged to make a
reactionary social agenda the first order of business for the current
Congress and state legislatures throughout the country.
For at least two and a half decades, massive layoffs, wage cuts and
slashing of employee benefits have ravaged workers in the private
sector. Utilizing the same methodology, the ruling class has now
targeted the public sector. Leading spokespeople for the ruling
class, both inside and outside of government, are openly calling for
the elimination of the right to strike for school teachers and other
public employees, drastic reductions in salaries and benefits, the
seizure of municipal and state pension funds by Wall Street, and the
complete eradication of collective bargaining rights for civil
servants, where they still exist.
The working class must face this challenge politically and build
broader alliances to advance its own program for jobs, job security
and employee benefits; moratoriums on foreclosures, evictions and
utility shutoffs; and an end to the Pentagon budget and the bailout
of the banks, which together drain trillions of dollars from the
national treasury every year.
Lessons of 1968: King & the struggle against poverty, war, racism
Every year the corporate media deliberately overlook or distort the
pivotal role of the civil rights and Black power movements during the
period leading up to and after the assassination of Dr. King.
Although King and other charismatic leaders were important in the
struggles to break down legalized segregation and win universal
suffrage and affirmative action programs, it was the involvement of
millions of African Americans, Latinos/as, women, youth and workers
of conscience that constituted the decisive factor in winning the
gains of that period.
In the spring of 1967, Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference came out decisively against the U.S. military occupation
of Vietnam. In taking this anti-war position, the SCLC linked the war
in Vietnam with the failure of the U.S. to adequately address the
problems of poverty, unemployment, national discrimination and oppression.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had taken a clear
position against the Vietnam War in January of 1966. In June, during
the "March Against Fear" through Mississippi, the "Black Power"
slogan was advanced. These developments coincided with growing
rebellions in African-American and Puerto Rican communities
throughout the country.
King's position on the war in Vietnam provided the basis for even
greater unity among the Black power, civil rights and anti-war
movements of the period. In addition to King's anti-war stance, the
SCLC had identified the necessity of eradicating poverty in the
United States as prerequisite for the creation of a genuinely
democratic and egalitarian society.
In February of 1968, the Memphis, Tenn., sanitation workers, who were
almost all Black, went on strike to demand recognition and collective
bargaining rights through the American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees. The racist city administration of Mayor
Henry Loeb refused to negotiate with the workers, and a citywide
strike support committee was established, headed by James Lawson, a
long-time civil rights organizer.
King was invited to Memphis to address a community rally on March 18,
where 13,000 people gathered to hear him speak. He called for a
general strike in Memphis to force the city administration to
recognize the sanitation workers.
On March 28, the day of the general strike, the police rioted and
attacked a mass demonstration in downtown Memphis. The city
administration shot dead a 14-year-old African-American youth and
declared an emergency, calling in the National Guard to suppress the
demonstrations and the sanitation strike.
Three days later, on March 31, Dr. King delivered a major address at
the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. He said: "There can be no
gainsaying of the fact that a great revolution is taking place in the
world today. In a sense it is a triple revolution: that is, a
technological revolution, with the impact of automation and
cybernation; then there is a revolution in weaponry, with the
emergence of atomic and nuclear weapons of warfare." ("Testament of
Hope," 1991)
King continued: "Then there is a human rights revolution, with the
freedom explosion that is taking place all over the world. Yes, we do
live in a period where changes are taking place and there is still
the voice crying through the vista of time saying, 'Behold, I make
all things new, former things are passed away.'"
King then stressed the need for a global view of developments during
the period: "First, we are challenged to develop a world perspective.
No individual can live alone, no nation can live alone, and anyone
who feels that he can live alone is sleeping through a revolution.
The world in which we live is geographically one. The challenge that
we face today is to make it one in terms of brotherhood." To which we
would add today "and sisterhood."
After the assassination of Dr. King, rebellions and mass
demonstrations erupted throughout the United States. In Washington,
D.C., thousands of federal troops were dispatched to guard the White
House and the Capitol.
Although the Poor People's Campaign launched by the SCLC did take
place a few weeks later and hundreds of marginalized workers of all
nationalities camped out in Washington demanding immediate relief
from the U.S. Congress, the effort was thwarted and eventually
smashed by the federal government.
Rebellions continued in the cities and on the campuses during the
summer and fall of 1968. In Detroit, African-American workers formed
the Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement which engaged in wildcat
strikes against the racist bosses, over and above the union bureaucrats.
At San Francisco State College and other campuses around the country,
African-American students and their allies shut them down, demanding
Black Studies programs and other efforts to make higher education
relevant to the plight of oppressed peoples in the United States. At
Wayne State University in Detroit, African-American students took
control of the South End campus newspaper, making it a revolutionary
organ that was distributed to people in the community, at high
schools and plant gates.
Challenges for working class & oppressed today
The ruling class took advantage of the economic crisis caused by
capitalist overproduction, which has led to massive unemployment and
growing poverty, to escalate political repression and attacks on
workers' wages and benefits. The strategic position of
African-American workers within industry and the urban areas has been
weakened with the further globalization of capital and the systematic
lowering of wages and living standards among the oppressed and the
working class in general.
Today the oppressed peoples and workers have been placed on the
defensive. Further attacks are underway against all sectors of the
working class, especially where workers were able to win public
sector jobs, educational rights and other social benefits. The
further restructuring of capital by the ruling class, absent of a
monumental fightback, will inevitably lead to millions more being
thrust into joblessness and poverty.
The workers and the oppressed have no choice but to form broader
alliances to fight the system of low-wage capitalism. This is a
critical period and the issue of low-wage workers must be
specifically addressed to counter the ruling class propaganda that
they have nothing in common with sectors of the proletariat who have
health insurance, a few vacation days and pensions all of which are
threatened and up for seizure by the banks.
If the public sector unions were to be smashed, it would provide even
greater openings for the ruling class to further exploit and repress
all the workers and the oppressed. If the wars of occupation against
the peoples of the world are allowed to continue, the ranks of
working class and oppressed youth will be further condemned to the
ravages of the Pentagon and the prison/industrial complex.
.
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