Martin Luther King Jr. — his name is well known among the American public for good reason. He was a champion of racial civil rights, with both sides of the political aisle trying to claim him as their own.

Yet, what is often overlooked is the other facet of civil rights that this southern pastor succored was labor rights. It is important to note that his work toward racial equality is a larger part of his legacy, his passionate, primary focus. However, it is important to remember all of the additional impactful achievements that someone accomplished over their lifetime, especially when we have a day celebrating them.

What labor rights did MLK work for? Well, for one, he was especially vocal in his belief in the power of the worker union. In fact, several times he outwardly expressed his views. A well known statement from MLK  was made at an American Federation of Labor Congress of Industrial Organizations convention in 1961: “The labor movement did not diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it.”

Much like during his fight for civil rights of racial minorities, MLK was not just a man of words, but a man of action as well. He would directly rail and protest against Right To Work Laws, which are laws that allow employers to have preference towards workers not in unions. In 1961, he famously protested these very same laws, arm in arm with workers of all races, in the heart of Chicago.

Many labor activists will never forget the causes for which he fought. A case in point is W.C Young, a labor activist and civil rights leader, who remembers the amazing contributions King made to his movement, the AFL-CIO in Chicago, and firsthand conversations with King. He particularly remembers King’s speech during the 30th anniversary of the landmark Wagner Act when King spoke about how far labor rights had come stating, “Out of it’s [The Labor Movement] bold struggles…new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life. The captains of industry did not lead this transformation…the wave of union organization crested over our nation, it carried to secure shores not only itself but the whole society.” 

Young remembers this as King directly called out the owners of the large industries that these fought for, not something the industries gave the workers.

A common term in activism nowadays is “intersectionality,” showing how things like class, race, and gender all intersect. King had a strong belief in this theory. Throughout his life as an activist, he pointed out how the working class and the black community had a large overlap in the origin of their oppression, how it almost seemed like the concept of race was being used as a tool to keep the white and black working class from uniting, making it seem to the white workers that they had more in common with the wealthy white people than their fellow workers, simply because they shared a skin tone.

King saw this better than anyone at that time and famously stated, “As I have said many times, and believe with all my heart, the coalition that can have the greatest impact in the struggle for human dignity here in America is that of the Negro and the forces of labor, because their fortunes are so closely intertwined.”

I write this today as an open petition, not as an erasure, of why we should view someone through all of their actions, not just most or some.

King himself showed the intersection of class and race, and we must not forget either, as they are so closely intertwined in his own words. Even on his last day, he was fighting for the rights of sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. Some would even say this was evident in his speech the night before his death, with these ever-timely words: “Let use rise up tonight with greater readiness. Let us stand with greater determination. And let us move on in these powerful days, these days of challenge, to make America what it ought to be. We have an opportunity to make America a better nation.”