In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke to a crowd of healthcare workers in New York, describing bleakly the existence of two Americas. One America, Dr. King suggested, was “flowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of equality,” while the other was defined by substandard housing conditions, inferior, quality-less schools and people working full-time jobs only to make a part-time wage. For those workers – all members of 1199NY (now a part of SEIU) – what Dr. King described was their reality. “Most of the poor people in our country are working every day,” Dr. King reminded the audience.
Now, more than 40 years later, at a moment of historic inequality, Dr. King’s words have profound resonance, if not renewed purpose. In the time since his speech, income growth for the wealthiest has increased rapidly while real wages for working people have plummeted, giving way to an era of unprecedented inequality. As a nation, we have witnessed the sacrifice of advancing the collective good in the name of corporate greed, plaguing communities in every corner of this country with failing schools and street after street of foreclosed homes.
The genius of Dr. King was his ability to provide hope by drawing a line between collective action, economic justice and racial equality. “There is something wrong with the policies, the priorities, and the purposes of our nation now,” Dr. King continued. “And we've got to say it in no uncertain terms.” Doing this, Dr. King promised, was the only way to guarantee that America would be one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
With King’s vision, the path forward was clear – through their union, the members of SEIU1199 sought justice, and through his words, they saw a pathway to racial equality. And their hope wasn’t unfounded. From the end of World War II through the start of the Vietnam War, economic growth benefited Americans of every social class, not just the wealthy.
The racism that Dr. King committed his life to ending remains pervasive, and is only compounded by a blistering gap between the poor and the wealthy. Today, the number of Hispanics earning poverty-level wages is significantly higher than any other community, while the wages of black and Hispanic households alike have decreased by thousands of dollars compared to just ten years ago.
This astounding reality comes on the heels of corporations raking in record profits and Wall Street firms rewarding themselves with unprecedented bonuses. As Dr. King explained in 1968, remedying the nation’s staggering inequality is not about resources, it’s about will. If we, as a nation, were truly committed to providing opportunities to anyone who works hard, pervasive inequality would be a matter of history instead of a contemporary theme in the American story.
For decades, working people in this country have quietly embodied Dr. King’s legacy by taking collective action in the name of justice and equality. But today, corporate greed and extreme politicians have aligned to launch an unbridled assault on this legacy, attempting to withhold opportunity from people who work hard – people like Quandra Blue, a patient care technician and mother of two from Baltimore.
Quandra is so dedicated to her children, that for years she worked the night shift just to put food on the table and pay rent. But after 8 years on the job, the night shift wages that Quandra once earned disappeared, forcing Quandra and her children to move into her grandmother’s house. For Quandra – and millions of others just like her – the “other” America is not just a quote from Dr. King, it’s a daily reality.
The vigilance of the 99 percent movement – lifted through stories like Quandra’s – is a contemporary tribute to Dr. King’s brilliance. But it cannot end there.
Realizing Dr. King’s vision is about reinvigorating the belief that opportunity is not the privilege of a few, but the birthright of all Americans. It’s a renewed understanding that the promise of America has always been our collective success. And finally, it is about recognizing that only through collective action, are economic justice and racial equality achievable.
And more than anything, we must achieve justice in “no uncertain terms.”
-Mary Kay Henry, President, SEIU