Uplifting Dr. Martin Luther King’s Legacy: His Challenge to the Labor Movement -A

Dr. King challenged the Teamsters in his most eloquent but penetrating words. He started off by acknowledging the limited accomplishments of civil rights movements on segregation:

�It will not be easy to accomplish this program because white America has had cheap victories up to this point. The limited reforms we won have been obtained at bargain rates for the power structure. There are no expenses involved, no taxes required for Negroes to share lunch counters, libraries, parks, hotels, and other facilities. For even the more substantial reform, such as voting rights required neither large monetary or psychological sacrifice. . . .�

We have been stuck in this phase for much too long. Dr. King understood that it was a class war long before the Occupy protests drew a line in the sand between the 99 Percenters and the contemporary robber barons who head up global finance capital. He understood the need for wealth redistribution long before the Republicans tried to make it a dirty word.