Put People First: Reflections on MLK Day
“We have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society. We are still called upon to give aid to the beggar who finds himself in misery and agony on life’s highway. But one day, we must ask the question of whether an edifice which produces beggars must not be restructured and refurbished. That is where we are now.”
- Dr. Martin Luther King, SCLC Retreat, South Carolina, May 1967
Media Mobilizing Project celebrated Martin Luther King Day with a renewed commitment to putting people first. As we look back on MLK’s legacy, we see that his work, and his words, are more relevant than ever.
In Philadelphia, forty percent of public schools are being turned into charters. In Chester, school teachers, bus drivers and cafeteria workers are working for no pay, and the school district is filing a lawsuit against the state for funding to finish the school year. Six Philadelphians, most of them children, have died due to the City's fire station brown out policy and closures. In Scranton, which is also suffering the effects of brown outs, fire fighters have been reduced by a third and three engine companies have been permanently closed.
Across Pennsylvania, 88,000 children have lost Medicaid coverage since August. Come May, no one with $2,000 in savings will be eligible for food stamps. Gas companies’ fracking has left residents’ water supply so contaminated that their wells have exploded. Home foreclosures are constant. Jobs are scarce. And we are asked to believe that these losses and attacks can be blamed on our neighbors and our friends – because they are immigrants or refugees, or because they are workers on strike.
In the face of this, we are telling the untold stories of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, and coming together to fight for our human rights, uniting the many leaders of today.
In 1967, as he took stock of the major wins of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. King looked towards the next step in the struggle for justice. He told his fellow members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), “It is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights … although the Constitution guarantees the right to vote, it does not guarantee the right to an adequate livable income … So we are dealing now with issues that are in the realm of human rights. We are talking about a good, solid, well-paying job. We are talking about a good, sound, sanitary house. We are talking not merely about desegregated education, but we are talking about quality education.”
The struggle for human rights that King called for was alive and well yesterday at three events MMP took part in – the Immigrant Communities Fight for Human Rights march, the Creating Nonviolent Schools and Communities panel and workshops, and the Occupy the Dream labor celebration of Dr. King’s legacy. Each of these events and the groups that took the lead on planning them – the Campaign for Nonviolent Schools, DreamActivist PA, Juntos, MMP, One Love Movement, Occupy Philly Labor Working Group and others – fought against long-held fissures and historical divisions to bring people and organizations and struggles together across issues, race, language, age, legal status, and sector of the workforce.
“We are all human beings,” said Cesar Marroquin of DreamActivist PA at the Human Rights march. “We all deserve the right to good housing. We all deserve the right to a good education. We all deserve to be able to stay with our families.”
Cesar and the dozens of other powerful speakers at these three events yesterday are some of the many Martin Luther Kings of today. Young and old. Parents, grandparents and children of every race and religious background. Documented and undocumented. Members of unions of the employed and the unemployed. Students, teachers, cafeteria workers, bus drivers. Religious leaders, professors, artists. Taxi workers, fire fighters, nurses, sanitation workers, domestic workers, restaurant workers, childcare workers, communications workers, office cleaners.
As Azeem Hill from the Philadelphia Student Union and Campaign for Nonviolent Schools said, “Our goal is bigger than nonviolent schools. We want to make schools places of nonviolent power.” Such schools would create leaders able to build a human rights movement for today.
In this year in which hometowns and kitchen tables across Pennsylvania will become electoral battlegrounds in the lead-up to November, we know that none of the presidential contenders will be fighting for us. They will continue to defend what Gwen Ivey, President of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Postal Workers Union, described as a “system that puts profit before people.”
"They will take everything from you," District Council 33 Union President Pete Matthews said. “And they will smile in your face.” They are fighting for themselves, and we must do the same.
We will fight for our lives and our families. We will fight to put people first. We will fight to know and understand each other well enough, to be able to articulate our common vision clearly enough, and to develop the program and policies that, in the words of 1199c Union President Henry Nicholas, “put an end to two different worlds – one for the poor and one for the rich.”
We will not be silent, and we will be heard.
Members of Juntos, One Love Movement, DreamActivist PA, Asian Americans United, Boat People SOS and others lead the Human Rights march. Photo by Wei Chen.
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