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By far, the labor movement was deeply involved in the American civil rights movement. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, labor unions offered institutional support for the Civil Rights Movement and were strong allies of leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr.
From the beginning, African Americans were active in the labor movement, comprising a majority of members in the Brotherhood of the Sleeping Car Porters (“BSCP”), founded by A. Philip Randolph, one of the “Big Six” organizers of the 1963 March on Washington.(What Impact Did the Unions Have on the Civil Rights Movement? | History Hit)
Dr. King himself recognized the important relationship between civil rights and labor rights. In a speech to the AFL-CIO in 1961, King stated that the struggles faced by African Americans and all laborers intersected on numerous fronts. Discrimination in the workplace, wage disparities, and the denial of fundamental rights were challenges that both movements confronted head-on. (In Unity: Civil Rights and the Labor Movement | American Postal Workers Union)
The United Auto Workers (“UAW”), led by Walter Reuther, has an especially close connection with Dr. King and the civil rights movement. Under Reuther, the UAW contributed significant resources, including assigning staffers to civil rights campaigns and publishing Dr. King’s messages on the UAW’s printed publications.
Reuther came to hold strong beliefs in favor of racial justice from a childhood incident where the Reuther brothers saw local boys throwing rocks at Black people being transported north through their hometown on open railway cars. Their father gave them a stern warning to never treat another human being like that. James Ten Eyck, The Life and Times of Walter Reuther: An Unfinished Liberal Legacy 264 (2016).
In 1963, a coalition of church leaders from Black congregations brought Dr. King to Detroit, where King led more than 125,000 people on a march called “Detroit Walk to Freedom,” down Woodward Ave., which was the largest civil rights demonstration up to that point. Some accounts claim that during this visit King also used the UAW’s headquarters at Solidarity House to write part of his “I Have a Dream” speech. The UAW leader who helped MLK tie organized labor to broader civil rights movement.
Reuther worked with Dr. King and the other “Big Six” leaders who organized the March on Washington in August 1963, and Reuther was one of the speakers.
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