Workers, Black Lives Activists Join Forces To Continue Dr. King's Poor People's Campaign

The world knows April 4 as the day in 1968 when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, where he had come to support the city's striking sanitation workers. This year it will mark the day when the Movement for Black Lives and Fight For $15 will join in solidarity with actions across the country.

On the 49th anniversary of King's assassination, thousands of workers, elected officials, and national civil rights leaders will march to the Lorraine Motel to demand higher wages for the 52 percent of Black and 60 percent of Latino workers paid less than $15 an hour. Other "Fight Racism, Raise Pay" actions will be held in over two dozen cities across the country, including Atlanta; Tampa, Florida; and Durham, North Carolina.

This is the first time that the Fight For $15 is joining the Movement for Black Lives on a national scale. In doing so, they will continue the historic interlocking struggle between racism and classism -- a struggle that King was waging at the time of his death as part of his Poor People's Campaign that aimed to put a face on poverty in the United States and demand economic justice.

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