Following tomorrow night's worldwide candlelight vigil for Martin Luther King Jr., a group of African American faith leaders will join Occupy Wall Street in a march at 10 a.m. Monday from the Financial District to Madison Square Garden in an effort to "reclaim the dream" and further the slain civil rights leader's fight for economic justice.
A release notes that the "roots of extreme inequality" can be traced to Wall Street, as it "is the exact site of the slave auction block upon which our prosperity as a nation was built…While slavery has been abolished, racism and systematic profiteering of the working class has not."
Michelle Crentsil, a member of Occupy Wall Street and members of Communications Workers of America, says the union will join the march to Madison Square Garden "to meet African American and Latino Cablevision workers as they confront Cablevision CEO and Knicks owner James Dolan—a member of the 1% who makes more than all of the workers in Cablevision combined and is blocking their right to organize.” The demonstration plans to appear in front of MSG as fans arrive for the Knicks game scheduled for that afternoon.
Occupy the Dream isn't just limited to New York, as cities across the country will host marches commemorating the anniversary of Dr. King's birthday.
A letter signed by city councilmembers Ydanis Rodriguez, Jumaane Williams, Robert Jackson, Letitia James, Melissa Mark-Viverito, and Fernando Cabrera outlines their support for the direction action.
We applaud the work of the Occupy movement in bringing economic and social justice to the center of the global conversation, and believe that it is crucial to acknowledge the past leaders whose sacrifices laid the foundation for future movements.
In an interview with a PBS affiliate this summer, Professor Michael Honey describes Dr. King's commitment to economic justice thusly: "Dr. King said that the civil rights movement was only phase one of the freedom movement, and phase two was economic justice."
