1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Inducted Into Labor Hall of Fame (a first)

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/29/971513/-1968-Memphis-Sanitation-Workers-Inducted-Into-Labor-Hall-of-Fame

Fri Apr 29, 2011 at 01:20 PM PDT

1968 Memphis Sanitation Workers Inducted Into Labor Hall of Fame

by James Parks

In an emotional ceremony, punctuated by several standing ovations, the U.S. Labor Department inducted into the Labor Hall of Fame 1,300 Memphis sanitation workers whose 1968 strike for their freedom to have a union and collective bargaining was Martin Luther King's last campaign. King was killed in the midst of the strike.

This is the first time the Hall of Fame has inducted a group of workers. U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said the sanitation workers were “ordinary men who took an extraordinary stand for what is right.”

Solis related that President Obama, who met with eight of the strikers this morning (above), told them he stood on their shoulders and he never would have been president if it were not for their courageous actions.

Former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, a King aide who was in Memphis in 1968, said the men represented not only themselves, but all poor people.

FULL story at link.