AFL-CIO Blog: Goal of True Equality Still Challenges Us All

IB ImageForty-nine years ago, on June 23, 1963, tens of thousands of people gathered here in Detroit, only weeks before hundreds of thousands went to Washington to march for jobs and freedom.

In the Detroit speech, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. sowed the seeds of his more widely known speech at our nation's capital. He described his famous vision of a day when the white sons of former slave owners and the black sons of those who had been enslaved would live together as brothers, judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their characters.

Yet we know King's dream was not merely a dream about friendship, not some story about two unlikely friends communing across a great economic divide. His dream was about true equality -- economic, political and social justice.

And he knew that a chief tool for freedom and progress for all people was collective action -- whether in the voting booth, in the workplace organized as a labor union or in the shared spaces of this country as nonviolent civil disobedience. It could be at a lunch counter in Alabama or in a park near Wall Street.

In the decades since King was taken from us, our nation may have made enormous strides in the direction of racial justice, but the tragedy of our time is that economic inequality has increased dramatically over the past half-century. All but the richest Americans have suffered. Nearly 100 million Americans live in poverty, almost one-third of us.

Indeed, since 1997, American families have suffered the first mass decline since the Great Depression. But it's not equal opportunity damage. Over the past 30 years, the median wealth for African-American households fell by two-thirds, and nearly half of black children live in poverty. The black unemployment rate last month was nearly 17%, almost twice the national average.

Yet, as in King's era, we live in a time of tremendous opportunity for change. In 2011, millions of Americans saw and experienced the strength that comes from collective action as people came together in protest in such places as Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, New York City and here in Detroit.

We learned something important. We saw that we are not alone. We saw that when we stand together with those who share our values, the numbers are on our side.

This weekend, like-minded partners in the modern fight for justice and equality are in Detroit to renew our commitment to stand together and honor the memory of one of America's greatest heroes. I hope all Detroiters use this King holiday to strengthen and renew ourselves, so we can have faith that we can solve our most intractable problems -- that we need not live in despair.

As we approach this important holiday, let's remember that we are united by the thirst for justice and for economic opportunity. Let's remember that we need not be limited by what we can see today, but that with faith and hard work we can trans-form America's dreams into reality.

The time is now. As King said, "The shape of the world today does not afford us the luxury of an anemic democracy."

Forty-nine years ago, King led the greatest and largest demonstration for freedom ever held in the U.S. It's time for us to fight for freedom again.

(Reporting by Arlene Holt Baker.)

From Blog.AFLCIO.org