The following remarks were made by BWFJ member Ajamu Dillahunt during a Martin Luther King Holiday event sponsored by the Raleigh & Durham Workers’ Assemblies.
Good morning, Brothers and Sisters, comrades, and friends! Welcome to this important event at a critical time in the history of the US. I want to express my gratitude to the Raleigh & Durham Workers Assemblies for asking me to share a few thoughts about Dr. King and his support for Labor.
Every year in January since 1986 we are confronted with what I call the struggle for Dr. King’s legacy. The corporate media, the corporations themselves, the schools and the religious institutions serve up a version of Dr. King that stripped him of the analysis and vision that propelled him through decades of struggle. The focus on his “I Have A Dream” speech and his advocacy of non-violence ignores, if not buries, his view on labor, the economy, war and so much more that is relevant to our struggle for survival, much less social transformation.
Our friend, Charles McKinney, one of our most important historians in this moment suggested that these institutions are “Killing King Again.” James Earl Ray’s bullets took his life on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel and today a well-financed and orchestrated assassination of his body of work has taken place. Charles calls it Martin Luther King, Jr. 2.0. For people seeking the truth and those seeking to end exploitation and oppression, we have to ground ourselves in King 1.0 and enter this struggle for ideas and even more important, take ACTION.
We say that for Workers the best way to celebrate Dr. King’s Legacy is to Organize, Fight for A Union, For Dignity at Work. So let’s briefly put that in context. Continue reading →
The recent national wave of workers resistance, sickouts and strikes across the U.S., the largest in many decades, shows that today’s workers’ demands and concerns must be heard and addressed! Objectively, the demands are real, reasonable, and necessary for everyone because they impact the quality of all our family lives and community. We are all workers! Hence, in North Carolina and many southern states, the call to repeal and abolish “Right to Work” laws that deny worker protections and public sector collective bargaining rights, has come front and center again.
The recent wave of militant actions by bus drivers, cafeteria, school workers and city workers in Elizabeth City, Greensboro, Charlotte, Forsyth, Pitt, Durham, and Wake Counties, as well as State workers, show that public workers cannot serve us – the residents and voting citizens of the 10th largest state in the US – when they are understaffed, underpaid and disempowered by NC state laws like General Statute section 95-98. This law bans public service workers from exercising the nationally recognized human right to collectively bargain. It was legislated to keep Black housekeepers, cafeteria workers and ground keepers on the State university campuses from union organizing and collective bargaining.
In 2006, the United Nations’ International Labor Organization found that NC’s ban on collective bargaining was in violation of the UN Charter on Human Rights. Our delegation with representatives from Black Workers for Justice, NC Public Service Workers Union – U.E. Local 150, and others walked into Governor Mike Easely’s office to deliver a copy of the ILO formal decision. His top administrative team responded with an Executive Order and series of “meet and confer” sessions that fell short of a needed political initiative to repeal the Jim Crow era statute’s ban on collective bargaining.
Public service workers provide clean and safe water and sewer services, schools, food and buses for our children, and sanitation services for our communities. Public workers staff our mental health hospitals, repair our roads and build our bridges. Public workers make North Carolina a great place to live, play and work!
We must challenge the present Governor Cooper’s administration, and educate others, while pushing the state to take action to bring collective bargaining to the public sector. If Virginia can, so can we!
Angaza Sababu Laughinghouse
NC Public Service Workers Union-UE local 150/ Executive Board
Raleigh Area Workers Asembly/Co-Chair ( affliliated with Southern Workers Assembly)
February 20th witnessed support actions across the country in support of the efforts of Amazon workers in Bessemer, Alabama to be represented by the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Workers Union. In total, there were 23 across the South and between 50 – 55 nationally. The broad support for this organizing is encouraging and an indication of how much people across the country understand the need for unions and are willing to get involved.
Organizations representing and advocating for oppressed communities have historically taken a stand in support of the right to organize understanding the importance of organization for all workers in general and Black workers in particular. Black civil rights and Black Liberation organizations have always engaged in or supported efforts to build the power of workers on the job and in the community
The shootings and killings at the Mother Bethel AME Church
in Charleston, SC, at the Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA and the recent shootings in Texas and Ohio
among others, are terrorist acts by racist white nationalists. We must be
concerned and prepared for this repressive political climate.
Black, Latinx and Indigenous peoples should be very
concerned about white nationalist terrorism because we are targeted as non-white
communities and populations, blaming us for the economic and social crisis
facing the millions of people across the US.
Racist white nationalism has continued following the Civil
War and has been looking for opportunities to emerge as a national movement to
unite the various racist tendencies and groups. They are hoping to influence
the direction of the white working-class. This included intimidating them to
silence any support for demands of Black and other oppressed sections of US
society.
The police killings of Black and Brown people and the mass
incarceration has been a major factor in criminalizing Black people, turning us
into the crime source and describing immigration of Latinx and African
descendants as an invasion into the US.
The Obama administration inherited and continued the
economic and international policies of previous administrations without major
changes. However, as a Black man in the highest office of the land his presence
provided an opportunity for the emerging racist white nationalism.
The Tea Party and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) began implementing a corporate financed and driven strategy to take over state governments. and formed a Tea Party Caucus in the Republican Party to further consolidate the most reactionary sections of the US ruling-class influence and control of US imperialist state power. These state governments used gerrymandering, forms of voter suppression, cut vital social programs and passed laws that reduced legal options for challenging corporations that violate workplace health and safety and community environmental justice conditions. The Trump Labor Board is establishing policies that not only place restrictions on unions, it is attacking the very right of workers to use concerted actions to engage in repeated strikes against employer injustices.
Trump took the political changes made by the Tea Party and
previous administrations and added the racist rhetoric targeting any semblance
of Black political power and Black resistance to the capitalist crises. His
birther campaign claiming that Obama was not American born was an opening shot
of his racist white nationalist campaign.
When Trump became president, he provided a platform for the
emergence of racist white nationalism as his social and political base and a
fascist social movement. Some of Trumps initial
cabinet appointments and aides, were fascist who helped to shape his
presidential campaign and first term in office.
Over the years since the Civil War various white supremacists
groups have formed. Most were armed and they had some divisions among
themselves on how to establish white political, economic and cultural power.
White nationalism became a framework for uniting the various white supremacist
tendencies under the Trump slogan of Make America Great Again (MAGA) and his
continuing racist attacks on Black and Brown people.
Trump’s presence in the white house helps to further promote
this racist and fascist white nationalism. Demanding the impeachment of Trump
before the 2020 presidential elections is critical for the Black and other
oppressed peoples. Impeach Trump Now!
should be our political mantra to
put pressure on the Democratic Party. Defeating the fascist demagogues in the
white house that give legitimacy to the rising and consolidation of white
nationalism should be viewed as part of the struggle against rising US fascism.
This will not only have national significance it will have
international significance. It will help to build national confidence among the
Black masses, organize pressure on Black Congressional representatives and
expose those not speaking out in favor of impeachment.
All major periods of struggle against the forces of
oppression, must consider the state of the Black liberation movement and what
they mean for unifying the various organizations toward resolving the
fragmentation that stops us from becoming an organized and powerful force with
strong bases in working-class areas to challenge critical aspects of capitalism
and state power.
Racist white nationalist terrorism appears to be targeting
social, religious and movement institutions.
In the case of Walmart this is a location where the majority of working-class
and poor people of color shop.
Community security is a must, including knowing who is entering
our communities, religious and social institutions and political programs.
Every Black family should have a legal firearm they can use
in their homes. There should be security at community meetings and at our
social and religious institutions. Above
all we need a united and strong Black liberation movement that aligns with
other movements of the oppressed, including white working-class and poor people
ready to oppose white nationalism.
We Need a Black United Front and Broad
Peoples Front Against White Nationalism!
Viewed by many as the most serious assault on labor organizations in recent history, the Supreme Court decision in Janus vs AFSCME is a call for the unions and worker organizations to adopt more militant and aggressive tactics in dealing with employers. Following is a statement by the Southern Workers Assembly (SWA) with an analysis and ideas on the way forward.
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U.S. SUPREME COURT DEALS BODY BLOW TO PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS, HURTS ALL
“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans such as ‘right to work,’” Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1964. “It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. “Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions for everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer, and there are no civil rights.”
The BWFJ is an organization of Black workers formed in December of 1982 out of a struggle led by Black women workers at a K-mart store in Rocky Mount, North Carolina against race and gender discrimination. After organizing a boycott of the local K-mart store and reaching out to workers at other workplaces and communities, Black workers and community activists from 10 counties met at the First Missionary Baptist Church in Fremont, NC in December 1982 to form BWFJ as a statewide organization.
well-financed and orchestrated assassination of his body of work has taken place. Charles calls it Martin Luther King, Jr. 2.0. For people seeking the truth and those seeking to end exploitation and oppression, we have to ground ourselves in King 1.0 and enter this struggle for ideas and even more important, take ACTION.
