COLUMBUS, OH – Today, U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) delivered remarks at the 39th annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Breakfast in Columbus.
In his remarks, Brown spoke about how Dr. King challenged a nation to live up to its own ideals of equality. Brown discussed Dr. King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, spoke about Dr. King’s teaching about the connection betweenworkers’ rights and civil rights, and recognized the continued need to push for progress.
“Dr. King understood the deep connection between civil rights and workers’ rights,” said Brown. “He understood that hard work should pay off – no matter who you are, what you do, or the color of your skin.”
Each year, the City of Columbus observes the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a breakfast and ceremony to reflect upon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy.
Brown’s remarks, as prepared for delivery, are below:
On April 3rd, 1968, as Martin Luther King Jr. stood at the pulpit of Mason Temple Church in Memphis and delivered his final speech, you could see his hope for our country, and hear his resounding faith.
It was Dr. King’s third trip to Memphis to stand with the Black sanitation workers striking for better treatment. Despite death threats and calls for violence, Dr. King had returned.
They were some of the most exploited workers in the country – with unfair wages and unsafe conditions. Months earlier, two Black workers had been killed in a tragic accident that could have been prevented.
Dr. King came to Memphis to honor them.
On Feb. 1, 1968, Mr. Echol Cole and Mr. Robert Walker showed up to work in segregated Memphis, in a segregated neighborhood – even in a segregated garbage truck where the white driver and supervisor sat in the closed cabin, and Mr. Cole and Mr. Walker were relegated to the back with the garbage.
During their shift, a storm hit. Mr. Cole and Mr. Walker had to huddle in the back of the truck to shield themselves from the rain. They sat surrounded by garbage as they waited for the downpour to end.
But the truck malfunctioned and those two young men, only 36 and 30 years old, with wives and families and their whole lives in front of them, were crushed.
Dr. King knew discrimination killed those men as much as their work conditions had.
He understood the deep connection between civil rights and workers’ rights. He understood that hard work should pay off – no matter who you are, what you do, or the color of your skin.
Speaking to those striking union workers – AFSCME local 1731 – Dr. King said:
“Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth…All labor has dignity.”
Those workers in Memphis had Dr. King on their side, and they had a union to lift up their voices in their fight for that dignity. Ultimately, the city met their demands.
It marked a turning point for civil rights and for workers’ rights and the power of a union. It meant Dr. King’s work would be continued.
And today, we recommit to fighting for that vision. Until we have equal rights for all, and Dignity for workers, all workers, our work remains unfinished.
Today, looking around this room at the activists and leaders, I have hope.
Thinking about the historic way people are turning out to vote, I have hope.
Seeing the labor movement build momentum with strong negotiations and new union members, I have hope.
Across the country, workers are demanding change. They’re using their voices to fight for the justice that Dr. King dedicated his life to.
And workers of all backgrounds and all ages are finding that a union is the best way to have a voice and to be heard.
Like the sanitation workers in Memphis, they know the power they have when they stand together.
For far too long in far too many workplaces, people of color haven’t had a voice. And too many unions have only had members who look like me.
We are changing that.
Earlier this year, I joined a Central Ohio Building Futures here in Columbus for the graduation of their 7th class.
The program is the first of its kind, started by community, labor and government leaders right here in Franklin County. We helped secure funding for the program because we knew what a difference it could make.
It’s empowering people to transform their lives by making good paying, skilled union jobs accessible to everyone – especially people who haven’t always been welcomed into the trades.
In that graduating class, I saw Ohio. All of Ohio. There were graduates of all ages, and all backgrounds. There were men and women.
For many of them, it was their first experience in construction. For some, it was their first job. And for others it was the beginning of a second or third career.
And they graduated that day, with a job and a union card, and fair wages, good healthcare, and retirement benefits in hand. And, oh yeah, no college debt.
Their hard work paid off and will continue to for the rest of their lives.
And that’s progress. It has not been fast, or inevitable. But of course, it never has been. Dr. King knew that.
My friend Dr. Otis Moss told me Dr. King always carried two books with him. Before every trip or speech or march, he packed the Bible and Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited into his briefcase marked by his initials engraved in the worn brown leather.
I imagine his copies were well-loved. I imagine them with worn covers, bookmarked pages, and notes in the margins. I imagine them sitting on his nightstand or open on his desk as he wrote and prepared for speeches.
We know Dr. King returned to these texts again and again. It’s clear he knew them cover to cover.
Most of you have read – probably in high school, perhaps a few times since – Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. Maybe today or this week, you’ll read it again.
Dr. King wrote that letter sitting alone in his jail cell with no resources or references – only his memory of those two books and tiny scraps of paper his lawyer had smuggled in to write on.
He was responding to the white moderate ministers who told him, slow down, don’t move too fast, don’t demand too much, all at once.
Every April, I lead 3 of my Democratic and 3 of my Republican colleagues in a reading of it on the Senate Floor.
And every year, I save the same section for myself, and I emphasize my favorite part: “human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.”
Progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability.
Today, we’re reminded that progress rolls in because we make it so – we organize, we push, we work every angle, and we’ll keep fighting for it for until we reach Dr. King’s vision, where justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.