USW Praises Occupy Protesters for Honoring King Legacy

http://usw.org/media_center/releases_advisories?id=0483

CONTACT: Wayne Ranick 412-562-2444

(Pittsburgh) -- Occupy protesters across the country who have planned events for this year’s Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Day honor his mission and the method he chose to pursue it, United Steelworkers (USW) officers said this week.

“By engaging in non-violent demonstration and by seeking economic justice, the Occupy protesters are walking in the footsteps of the Rev. King, and I think he would be proud of their efforts,” said USW International President Leo W. Gerard.

USW Vice President for Human Affairs Fred Redmond added, “In the year before his assassination, Dr. King launched with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference the Poor People’s Campaign to seek decent jobs, health care and housing for all Americans. He did it because he came to believe people cannot truly be free until they are economically independent.”

A month after Dr. King was gunned down in April of 1968, his widow led thousands of Poor People’s Campaign demonstrators into Washington, D.C. where they established an encampment, called Resurrection City on the National Mall.


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