Roomin' House Blues

April 4th is the 43rd Anniversary of the Assassination of Martin Luther King and it's coming in the middle of a re-ignition of the labor and civil rights movements in the wake of Wisconsin.  The spirit of the Cheddar Revolution is spreading and hundreds of rallies, protest actions, leafleting, picketing, faith events, teach ins, work site discussions, and marches are scheduled.  A broad spectrum of labor and progressive organizations are taking action for Martin Luther King Jr.'s call for economic justice for all. Martin Luther King was in Memphis 43 years ago this April 4th, helping striking sanitation workers demand a living wage and better working conditions when an assassins bullet struck him down.  Across the country a wave of riots struck poor African American neighborhoods, college campuses erupted in protests and progressives took to the streets as grief and anguish motivated a broad spectrum of Americans.  ...

For those of us growing up in the 1960's this speech came to explain the civil rights movement. 

I was growing up right in the time from the height of the civil rights movement to the beginnings of the anti-Vietnam war movement.  As an adolescent I watched civil rights demonstrators, including Dr. King and John L. Lewis beaten and attacked by dogs, and wept over the murders of civil rights organizers.  I learned the connection between race and poverty in America from the media, from books and from first hand exposure.  My sisters Mexican friends who lived a block away were poor.  But I also discovered that my white friends up the block and her white friends around the corner were also poor.  I also discovered that prejudice was not limited to race.  My class mates said horrible things about the mentally ill, which stung me, because my mother was mentally ill. So the civil rights movement and Dr. King began to represent a lot of things to me. He was about a fight against prejudice and intolerance.  But he w...