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I AM 2018 Movement to launch April 2-4

(Photo: Tyrone P. Easley)

The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Church of God in Christ (COGIC) are launching a national effort crafted to ensure the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1968 Memphis sanitation strikers lives on with a new generation of activists.

With the goal of advancing labor and civil rights and tackling issues plaguing low-income communities nationwide, the I AM 2018 campaign seeks to transform Memphis this April into the birthplace of a new political movement and aggressive voter education and civic engagement program. A measure of success would be mobilized turnout for the 2018 elections and beyond.

“I AM 2018 isn’t just a reflection on the past; it’s a call to action for the future. Dr. King and the Memphis strikers knew that you can’t achieve economic justice without racial justice,” said AFSCME President Lee Saunders. “And yet, 50 years after Dr. King’s ‘Mountaintop’ speech, working people are still fighting those same fights.

“We’re embarking on a historic partnership with COGIC to build and grow a network of trained, energized activists, connecting our generation’s struggles with the unfinished work of the heroes of Memphis: Dr. King, the Memphis strikers and the faith leaders who stepped up together to bend the moral arc of the universe towards justice.”

In Memphis on April 2-4, many the country’s most prominent civil rights, faith, labor, entertainment and other leaders will hold “first-of-its-kind” trainings, mobilization and commemoration activities across the city, including at Mason Temple COGIC, where Dr. King delivered his last speech, uttering what many now consider prophecy:

“…I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!”

The building-block activities of the I AM 2018 Movement include a Mountaintop speech commemoration at Mason Temple on April 3, beginning at 7 p.m. Dr. King’s children – Dr. Bernice King and Martin Luther King III – will be present. They will celebrate, along with civil rights movement icon Ambassador Andrew Young, former Atlanta mayor and U.N. ambassador; COGIC Presiding Bishop Charles Blake Sr., AFSCME’s Saunders and others.

A crowd expected to be at 3,000-plus will be led in a prayer and then called upon to honor Dr. King with ongoing action to continue his “unfinished work,” namely confronting prejudice and poverty and advancing the freedom of all working people.

The next morning beginning at 9:30, the sacrifice of the 1968 Sanitation Strikers (1300 of them) will be recounted and saluted during a march and rally from the steps of AFSCME Local 1733 headquarters on Beale Street to Mason Temple. Common and other high-profile artists will kick-off the rally. At Mason Temple, the crowd will be greeted by gospel music performances from multi-racial and interfaith choirs and speeches from the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton.

Gearing up for activism

The I AM 2018 campaign is focused on ensuring grassroots activists, students and other community organizers are equipped with tools needed to mobilize around local issues in their neighborhoods.

Hundreds of I AM 2018 Dream Corps activists will be trained during the first week of April. At a Youth Town Hall, prominent and engaged activists and leaders at the forefront of fights for economic and racial justice will discuss issues concerning urban youth and make plans for November elections and future ones.

Alongside these trainings, prominent journalists, academics, community leaders and subject experts will join a three-day Mountaintop Conference featuring panels on criminal justice reform, minority youth education, the future of American workers and the intersection of labor, faith and civil rights. Those leading panels will include Young, the Rev. James Lawson, AFT President Randi Weingarten, labor leader Bill Lucy and AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Elissa McBride.

Organizing and support-building efforts have intensified over the past few weeks. On February 1 in Memphis and 70-plus other cities, there was a coordinated moment of silence to honor Memphis sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker, who were crushed to death in 1968 while seeking cover from the rain in the back of their garbage trucks. Their deaths sparked the strike that brought Dr. King to Memphis.

On February 24, two days before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case that could threaten workers’ rights, thousands flooded the streets of major cities demanding “freedom from want and hate” and calling the U.S. to task for “broken political and economic systems.”

Since then, college students and filmmakers have been submitting that connect Dr. King’s fight for justice to today’s movements for social change. The winning submissions, judged by Hans Charles, Dorian Parks, co-founder of Geeks of Color, and award-winning filmmakers Madeleine Hunt Erlich and Shahin Izadi, will be screened at Mason Temple on April 3rd.

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