“We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.”
Martin Luther King, Jr.

As we prepare to commemorate the great man’s life 50 years on, it is right that we recall the two great struggles that brought him to Memphis on that fateful day: the struggle for civil rights and the struggle for economic justice. As King spoke to the Memphis sanitation workers, supporting their strike for workplace safety and equal treatment of black workers, he declared, “You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor.”

Over these coming weeks, we will be making the same declaration —that the city of Winston-Salem examine itself and the poverty that exists within its boundaries.

To our shame, that poverty even exists among the very people who work to make our city run. Right now, there are people who work for the city of Winston-Salem who are barely getting by. Where is the justice in that?

Sign up to support the campaign for family wages of $15 or more for city workers.