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Martin Luther King, Jr., Union Man
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 Jan. 17, 2022 | EQUALITY | If Martin Luther King Jr. still lived, he’d probably tell people to join unions. King understood racial equality was inextricably linked to economics. He asked, “What good does it do to be able to eat at a lunch counter if you can’t buy a hamburger?” Those disadvantages have persisted. Today, for instance, the wealth of the average White family is more than 20 times that of a Black one. King’s solution was unionism. In 1961, King spoke before the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest and most powerful labor organization, to explain why he felt unions were essential to civil rights progress. “Negroes are almost entirely a working people,” he said. “Our needs are identical with labor’s needs—decent wages, fair working conditions...” The Conversation Related: Teamsters: Let’s honor the legacy of MLK by passing the voting-rights legislation
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