sanitation workers

Image via RNS/Adelle M. Banks

I understand you’ve been to the White House with active and retired sanitation workers and met President Obama.

It was awesome. We men were invited to the [Map Room] and we went in, talked with the president, shook his hand. He said, “I want to thank you gentlemen for your efforts and your hard work.” He said, “Because if it hadn’t been for you all, I wouldn’t be standing here where I am today.” He said, “I’m standing on y’all’s shoulders.”

Eric Martin 4-04-2013
World Telegram & Sun photo by Dick DeMarsico. / Wikimedia Commons

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1964, World Telegram & Sun photo by Dick DeMarsico. / Wikimedia Commons

This August will mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and there will rightly be much remembrance and celebration of its place in American history. But there is another anniversary that our nation, and especially its Christians, would do well to acknowledge, investigate, and ruminate.

Forty-five years ago yesterday, Dr. King arrived in Memphis, Tenn., to support a sanitation workers’ strike seeking to unionize. He was assassinated the next day — the anniversary we today remember — and in a sad irony our nation began the sanitation of his legacy. Indeed, King’s decision to join the Memphis struggle was just one of many acts that clash with what David Sirota calls the “Santa Clausified” image of King that we pass to our youth. 

Myrna Pérez 1-22-2010

This week started off by honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and is ending with a Supreme Court decision, Citizens United, giving corporations unprecedented ability to affect election outcomes by declaring unconstitutional certain limitations on corporate expenditures on electioneering.