All the news that’s fit to print doesn’t begin to fit in all the news about Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King is rightly praised as a civil rights hero who called for integration and fought against racism.

But he is wrongly pigeonholed as a single issue activist. In fact, Martin Luther King, especially towards the end of his life, saw that civil rights were empty if not accompanied by economic rights, workers’ rights and human rights. He called the labor movement “the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress.” Injustice, oppression, and racism against other peoples and nations was just as abhorrent to Dr. King as injustice, oppression and racism against Americans. But his position on capitalism, labor, U.S. foreign policy, and Vietnam are not part of the legend that surrounds Dr. King. So here are 10 things you didn’t learn about Martin Luther King.

1) Martin Luther King gave his life for workers on strike. You may (or may not) know that Martin Luther King went down to Memphis, where he was killed, in order to march with AFSCME Memphis Sanitation workers on strike. The night before he was killed, Dr. King addressed the workers

You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth.

Read the rest of this entry »