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Civil Rights and Labor: Joint Struggles for Justice

by Corinne Geballe

Introduction: The civil rights movement and the labor movement in the U.S. shared many
significant similarities in their respective struggles for dignity and equality for all. This
curriculum unit with its six lessons illuminates the key similarities between the two movements.
The unit will help students:
• make connections and identify similarities between the labor movement and the African-
American and Latino civil rights movements in the U.S.
• understand Dr. King’s role in the U.S. labor movement, including Dr. King’s desire for a
unified force to fight against discrimination, given the similarities between the
movements for civil rights and labor rights
• examine similarities and differences in the socioeconomic circumstances of Americans
in the 1960s and the present
• read and interpret primary source documents

Grade: 4

CA State Standards:
English Language Arts for Grade Four: Writing Strategies 1.1-1.2; Writing Applications 2.4;
Listening and Speaking Strategies 1.1 – 1.3; Speaking Applications 2.3

Essential Question:
How is the labor movement in the U.S. similar to the African-American and Latino civil rights
movements?

Sub Questions:
1. Why was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. an important ally for the labor movement?
2. Why did Dr. King advocate for a strong connection between rights for African Americans
and the labor struggle?
3. What groups of people in California today would have been inspired by Dr. King’s
messages in his speeches and articles on the labor struggle? Why?
Unit Parts:
1. NALC’s Drive against Job Discrimination
2. “If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins”
3. Illinois State AFL-CIO Convention of 1965
4. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Telegram to Cesar Chavez
5. Sanitation Workers March to Memphis
6. March to Memphis

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Part One: The Drive against Job Discrimination by the Negro American
Labor Council (NALC)

Materials Needed:
• Handout A: Press Release, Negro American Labor Council, “Institute and workshop
mark launch of drive against job discrimination.”

Activities/Instructions:

1. Opening Activity:
a. Briefly review the definition of discrimination with students. Ask students to
brainstorm, as a class, about possibilities of job discrimination and specific types of
discrimination that workers might face. In what ways might an employer unfairly treat an
employee while s/he is working on the job?
b. Write the following union groups on the board or on a flip chart. First discuss with
students those groups with which they might be familiar. Allow more time to introduce
and discuss those union groups with which students may be less familiar.
Union groups: Sheet metal, electrical workers, carpenters, plumbers, bricklayers,
International Longshoremen Association, Brotherhood of Railway and Steamship Clerks,
International Moulders and Workers, International Association of Railway Employees,
Baltimore Fire Fighters, Seafarers International Union and the International Hood
Carriers, Building and Common Laborers.

2. Classroom Activity: Introduce the following mini-lesson to students:

In Feb. 1961, 800 people came to a meeting in Washington D.C. to begin a movement
against job discrimination. They created a plan to use 15 different ways to stop
discrimination by workers’ unions. They noted that twice as many African-American
workers (13.8% of them!) were out of work the previous month, compared to just 7 % of
white workers. Explain that all the groups discussed earlier (on the board or flip chart)
were the unions that were discriminating against the workers.
Using the jigsaw teaching strategy, select 4 points out of the 15 points listed in the
handout. Divide the class into jigsaw groups of 4 members each. Have each group discuss
the point it were assigned. Then have each team member from the jigsaw groups explain

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their point clearly within new expert groups. In reports back to their original jigsaw
group, ask students to discuss all four points by responding with one clear sentence to the
prompt, “What do the conference participants want?” (Here is more information on the
jigsaw teaching strategy).

3. Classroom Activity:

Model for students what is expected in the activity, using this second point from the
handout as an illustration, using Point 2: Eliminate exclusion from unions: Within 6
months, unions must “abolish the practice of exclusion of workers of color from
membership by tacit consent (implied or suggested agreement).”
Clarify this point by elaborating in the following way:
“Let’s clarify some new words here. So the NALC wants the unions to abolish – or stop
– letting unions exclude – or leave out – non-white workers by having them subtly agree
not to join. Basically, it sounds as if the white union leaders simply don’t ask if the others
want to join, so they don’t get to join as a result of not being asked. That certainly doesn’t
seem fair! So how could we summarize this for our team? Here’s one way: They want the
unions to quickly stop excluding non-white workers by making the leaders ask everyone
if they want to be a member.”
Now use the following point from the handout as an illustration:
Point 6: Integration into AFL-CIO: “Integration of qualified Negro office and staff
workers into all departments of the general headquarters of the AFL-CIO in Washington,
D.C., as an example to the national and international unions.”
Ask students these questions:
Who remembers what integration means? What do you think it means to get qualified
blacks into all departments? Why would that set an example to the national and
international unions? What do they want the national and international unions to do? Do
you think it would solve the problem, or at least help to fix it? (Guide the students to a
response such as, “They want more blacks working for the AFL-CIO in the capitol to
help increase the number of integrated unions in the U.S. and around the world.”)

4. Extension Activity:
Assign one member from each jigsaw team into a new team, so that there is a new total of
4 teams. Each team is responsible for analyzing and summarizing one of the following
points from the handout:

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Point 8: Representation in national politics: The Civil Rights Department needs to
“serve as an example of the application of the principles of the Civil Rights Movement to
the entire labor movement.” The department must be led by a Negro trade unionist with
the help of a native white Southerner who believes strongly in civil rights. The whole
department needs to have an “adequate interracial office force.”
Point 9: Hiring practices in national government: The president must demand an
investigation of “employment policies of all the departments of the Federal government”
with the goal of “eliminating the practice of race bias.”
Point 10: Promotion based on ability: The president must investigate promotions to
make sure people are given “equal opportunity regardless of race or color” to have a job
that matches his/her ability. 70% of black government employees do not have
professional jobs.
Point 15: Equal rights to work: The Presidents of the nation and the AFL-CIO and the
leaders of industry, demand that the government, the workers and management will
“respect, recognize and support the God-given right of every human being, regardless of
race or color, to earn a living in the sweat of his brow.”
Once the groups have finished discussing and summarizing their bullet points, each group
member returns to his/her original team to share what was discussed. Team members
brainstorm and collaborate to answer the guiding questions (listed above) about
connections between civil and labor rights. Finally, ask students to share their ideas with
the whole class either orally through a presentation or by creating a poster.

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Part Two: “If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins”

Materials Needed:
• Handout B: “If the Negro wins, Labor wins,” Speech given at the AFL-CIO Fourth
Constitutional Convention, 2/12/1962

Activities/Instructions:

1. Opening Activity: Review with the class the drive against job discrimination that the
Negro American Labor Council (NALC) started. Ask students to recall and name some of
the demands or ideas that were changed in the way workers and unions operated. Write
these on the board.

2. Explain to students that they will be reading a shortened version of a speech that Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. gave at the AFL-CIO convention. Tell students that they will
initially use reciprocal teaching to read the speech in their teams.

3. Guided Practice: Either read aloud – or ask students to read aloud – the following
excerpts from Handout B. Pause for discussion questions as noted in italics below.
“Less than a century ago…the children of workers had no childhood and no future. They
too worked for pennies an hour and by the time they reached their teens they were worn-
out old men, devoid of spirit, devoid of hope, and devoid of self-respect.”
Let’s stop to clarify some terms. What do you think “devoid” means? Do you think
people working with very low salaries would have a lot of spirit, hope, and self-respect?
Or would they have none? So, could “devoid” mean “not having” or “lacking”? Let’s
ask some questions. Possibilities may be: Why did they get only pennies each hour? Why
couldn’t they go to school instead of work?
Let’s make a prediction for the next section. We may learn about how blacks have
historically faced a similar challenge as workers.
Read together as a class:
“History is a great teacher. Now, everyone knows that the labor movement did not
diminish the strength of the nation but enlarged it. By raising the living standards of
millions, labor miraculously created a market for industry and lifted the whole nation to

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undreamed levels of production. Those who today attack labor forget these simple truths,
but history remembers them.”
If necessary, clarify the terms “diminish” and “living standards.” Next, ask students the
question: Why and/or how are people attacking labor today?
Read together as a class:
“If we do not advance, the crushing burden of centuries of neglect and economic
deprivation will destroy our will, our spirits, and our hopes. In this way, labor’s historic
tradition of moving forward to create vital people as consumers and citizens has become
our own tradition, and for the same reasons.
This unity of purpose is not an historical coincidence. Negroes are almost entirely a
working people. There are pitifully few Negro millionaires and few Negro employers.
Our needs are identical with labor’s needs, decent wages, fair working conditions, livable
housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can
grow, have education for their children, and respect in the community.”
Stop to summarize before moving on to reciprocal teaching for the rest of the selections
from the speech.

4. Extension Activity: In teams, use reciprocal teaching strategy to predict, read, clarify,
question, and summarize the following passages. Here is a handy reference on how to
employ reciprocal teaching strategy.
a. “Our society, with its ability to perform miracles with machinery, has the capacity to
make some miracles for men – if it values men as highly as it values machines.
To find a great design to solve a grave problem labor will have to intervene in the
political life of the nation to chart a course which distributes the abundance to all instead
of concentrating it among a few. The strength to carry through such a program requires
that labor know it friends and collaborate as a friend. If all that I have said is sound, labor
has no firmer friend than the 20 million Negroes whose lives will be deeply affected by
the new patterns of production.”
b. “The two most dynamic and cohesive liberal forces in the country are the labor
movement and the Negro freedom movement. Together we can be architects of
democracy in a South now rapidly industrializing…”
c. “I look forward confidently to the day when all who work for a living will be one with no
thought to their separateness as Negroes, Jews, Italians or any other distinctions.
“This will be the day when we shall bring into full realization the American dream – a
dream yet unfilled. A dream of equality of opportunity, of privilege and property widely

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distributed; a dream of a land where men will not take necessities from the many to give
luxuries to the few; a dream of a land where men will not argue that the color of a man’s
skin determines the content of his character; a dream of a nation where all our gifts and
resources are held not for ourselves alone but as instruments of service for the rest of
humanity; the dream of a country where every man will respect the dignity and worth of
human personality – that is the dream.”

In conclusion, suggest these insights to students and ask them if they agree or disagree:
1. The labor movement hasn’t yet helped African Americans as much as it should.
2. In fact, some unions have actually contributed to the degraded economic status of African
Americans.
3. Labor must root out discrimination, eliminating it altogether both internationally and
domestically.

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Part Three: Illinois State AFL-CIO Convention: 1965
Materials Needed:
• Handout C: Address at the Illinois State Convention of the American Federation of Labor
and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), 10/7/1965

Activities/Instructions:

1. Opening Activity: Share with students the following: We have already read and
discussed a speech that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave in 1961 at the national AFL-CIO
Convention. Today, we will look at part of a speech that Dr. King gave about four years
later in Illinois which addresses similar problems. We will return to our guiding questions
from the previous lesson and use these last two speeches to help us think more deeply
about the connections between labor and civil rights, and particularly how and why Dr.
King tried to connect the two movements.

2. Active Involvement: Ask students the following question: Based on what we’ve learned
so far, who would like to make a prediction about the kinds of themes or big ideas that
Dr. King might have liked to discuss with local AFL-CIO members?

3. Guided Practice:
a. Read the following excerpts from Handout C together as a class. Ask students to take
turns reading aloud (popcorn style) each sentence of the following two paragraphs from
Dr. King’s speech.
“Thirty years ago the young labor movement made government create tens of millions of
jobs in a great hurry, and benefited all of society in the process. Today labor can resume
its pioneering role for its own security and at the same time it will dissolve America’s
most acute and distressing problem – Negro equality and freedom. In creating full
employment, the poverty of Negroes will be eliminated; their migrations which swell
ghettos causing turmoil and suffering will diminish; their family life will have an
economic base on which to find stability and structure. The Negro will be able to shape
his new life by his own efforts freed from the mothering prison of poverty that stifles him
generation after generation.”

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“Education for our children is second class and in the higher levels so limited it has no
significance as a lever for uplift. The tenements we inhabited thirty years ago, which
were old then, are three decades more dilapidated.”
b. Clarify less familiar terms, such as the following: “benefited” (use cognate),
“pioneering” (remind students of examples of pioneers), “dissolve” (just a new context –
infer from literal meaning and context), “acute and distressing,” “swell,” “turmoil,”
“diminish,” “stifles,” “uplift” (word parts), “tenements,” “dilapidated” (infer from
context).
c. Question: Ask students: How exactly will more employment help families? What was
education like for African Americans? What do you think their apartments looked like?
d. Summarize: A possible view: Labor was good for America. It helped African
Americans escape from poverty and improved their quality of life.

4. Extension Activity:
a. Ask students to predict, clarify, question, and summarize as they read, similar to the
Guided Practice above. Students read the rest of the article with a partner of a slightly
different reading level, pausing after each paragraph to monitor their own understanding
and record their thoughts in their notebooks.
“If a coalition of conscience between the forces of labor, the church, the academic
community and the civil rights movement does not emerge to make these issues inescapably
clear and demand their solution, then I am afraid that hostility and violence will breed a crisis
of nationwide proportion. Anyone who remembers how quickly the nonviolent movement
spread across the South, first in the bus boycotts and then within a year to almost 200 cities
in the sit-ins, will shudder in horror at the thought of violence spreading with similar speed.
I do not come to you as a prophet of doom; I come to you as one who has accepted the
challenge of our urban ghettos. This is a more difficult challenge than the one we face in the
South, for we will not be dealing with constitutional rights; we will be dealing with
fundamental human rights. It is a constitutional right for a man to be able to vote, but the
human right to a decent house is as categorically imperative and morally absolute as was that
constitutional right. It is not a constitutional right that men have jobs, but it is a human right.
And so I call upon labor as the historic ally of the underprivileged and oppressed to join with
us in this present struggle to redeem the soul of America and to revitalize the life of the poor
and downtrodden.
The two most dynamic movements that reshaped the nation during the past three decades are
the labor and civil rights movements. Our combined strength is potentially enormous. We

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have not used a fraction of it for our own good or for the needs of society as a whole. If we
make the war on poverty a total war; if we seek higher standards for all workers for an
enriched life we have the ability to accomplish it, and our nation has the ability to provide it.
If our two movements unite their social pioneering initiative, thirty years from now people
will look back on this day and honor those who had the vision to see the full possibilities of
modern society and the courage to fight for their realization. On that day, the brotherhood of
man, undergirded by economic security, will be a thrilling and creative reality.”
b. Ask each pair of students to share their summaries and questions from the reading with
another pair. Then, ask the two pairs to choose something to share with the whole class.
Add any questions that can be answered to a “Guiding Questions” chart. Add lingering
questions or ones that are not related to the guiding questions - but are still interesting and
important - to “Future Questions” for attention at a later time.

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Part Four: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Telegram to Cesar Chavez
Materials Needed:
• Handout D: Telegram to Cesar Chavez, 9/9/1966.

Activities/Instructions:

1. Opening Activity: Tell students the following: We know that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
cared a lot about the national labor movement. Today, we will see what he did to
encourage leaders of other labor organizations to fight for rights.

2. Active Involvement: Ask students the following questions: Who are some labor leaders
– whom we’ve discussed in class – who were contemporaries of (i.e., lived around the
same time as) Dr. King? Which of these leaders might have communicated with Dr. King
about labor issues?

3. Guided Practice: Distribute Handout D to students. Ask students to take turns reading
sentences in the telegram aloud and clarify less familiar terms as they arise. You can
block out the name on the telegram and ask students to make an educated guess as to who
wrote it.
As brothers in the fight for equality, I extend the hand of fellowship and good will and
wish continuing success to you and your members. The fight for equality must be fought
on many fronts—in the urban slums, in the sweat shops of the factories and fields. Our
separate struggles are really one—a struggle for freedom, for dignity, and for humanity...
We are together with you in spirit and in determination that our dreams for a better
tomorrow will be realized.

4. Independent Practice: Ask students to individually write a response from Cesar Chávez
to Dr. King. In their response, ask students to include: a) an expression of appreciation to
Dr. King for his telegram and b) note questions that they have (or that they think Cesar
Chavez would have had) about labor organizing happening in other parts of the country
or in other communities. Ask for a few volunteers to read aloud their return telegrams to
the class.

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Part Five: Sanitation Workers’ Strike in Memphis
Materials Needed:
• Handout E: Address at Mass meeting at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple, 3/18/1968
• Handout F: Excerpts from Dr. King’s speech at the Mass meeting at the Bishop Charles
Mason Temple, 3/18/1968 (end of lesson)
• Handout G: Matching and Rephrasing (end of lesson)

Activities/Instructions:

1. Opening Activity: Tell students the following: “We have recently learned a lot about
strikes, such as janitor strikes in L.A. and railroad workers’ strikes in the 1860s. What do
you think sanitation workers might have been demanding with their strike in Memphis,
Tennessee in 1968? (Write down some student responses on the board or flip-chart).
One of the last speeches that the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave was in Memphis,
Tennessee in support of these sanitation workers on March 18, 1968 at the Bishop
Charles Mason Temple.

2. Read Handout F: Excerpts from Dr. King’s speech, aloud in front of a podium,
pretending to be Dr. King himself. Pause after inspirational lines (these lines are in
italics). Also pause periodically for responses. Students may choose to share their
responses orally, or in writing. Tell students that they will be asked to select some key
lines for use in a later activity – a reader’s theater.

3. Discussion/Reflection Questions: In teams, students will first share their thoughts from
the speech, using the following questions as a guide:
• What is MLK encouraging the people of Memphis to do?
• What are some of his examples of economic inequality?
• How does MLK believe that society needs to change?

4. Distribute Handout G to students. Ask students to match a part in Column A with an


appropriate part in Column B, then rephrase the sentence they have created – through
matching – in their own words.
Here are the correct pairings for your reference as the instructor:
A) Whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity,

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B) it has dignity, and it has worth

A) You are reminding the nation that it is a crime


B) for people to live in this rich nation and receive starvation wages

A) Now our struggle is for genuine equality


B) which means economic equality.

A) What does it profit one to have access to the hotels of our city and the motels of our
highway
B) when we don’t earn enough money to take our family on a vacation?

A) Let it be known everywhere that along with wages and all of the other securities that
you are struggling for,
B) you are also struggling for the right to organize and to be recognized.

5. Extension Activity: Divide students into groups and ask them to select parts of Dr.
King’s speech in Handout E that they would like to rehearse and perform as part of a
“Readers’ Theater” where they may paraphrase as much or as little as they would like.
You can find more information “Readers’ Theater” here.

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Part Six: Memphis March
Materials Needed:
• Handout H: Memo to all Marchers, 4/8/1968

Activities/Instructions:

1. Opening Activity:
Give students this opening introduction to the unit: “We recently listened to and
performed excerpts from one of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last speeches given in
Memphis, Tennessee. The march that Dr. King had gone to support – the Memphis
sanitation workers’ strike – went on as planned. In this lesson, we will read and work
with a copy of the letter sent to all the marchers, reminding them of the importance of
their endeavor and giving them practical advice for a smooth march. This form letter to
all marchers was not written by Dr. King; it was instead written by James M. Lawson.
For more details on Mr. Lawson, read this article in the King Encyclopedia.

2. Classroom Activity:
Using reciprocal teaching, teams read the memo and discuss the big ideas, first alone and
then as a whole class. The focus will be on phrases such as the following: “economic
justice;” “to win as human beings and as men – not as animals who use violence;”
“honor[ing King] for great love and sacrifice for us…by making sure that the Sanitation
Workers win their rights non-violently;” “do not lose our heads… stand united, let no
man, black or white, trick us into violence.”

3. Extension Activity:
Choose a civil rights and/or labor rights issue that relates to your life. Design a brochure
for marchers modeled after this one, with a brief introduction (about three short
paragraphs) and a list of items to remember. Consider the following questions as you
draft your brochure:
What is the goal of your march? What tactics or strategies will most effectively help you
reach that goal? Where is the march and how many people are involved? Are there
certain chants or slogans you want people to say or write on signs? Is there a person or
group of people that the march is supporting and whom you would like to especially
thank or honor?

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Handout F: Excerpts from Dr. King’s Speech at the Mass meeting at the Bishop Charles
Mason Temple, 3/18/1968

“This really is a great movement here in Memphis,” I said to my friend and organizer.
…You are demonstrating something here that needs to be demonstrated all over our
country. You are demonstrating that we can stick together and you are demonstrating that
we are all tied in a single garment of destiny, and that if one black person suffers, if one
black person is down, we are all down.
… [We also must] unite beyond class lines. The Negro “haves” must join hands with the
Negro “have-nots”.
You are doing many things here in this struggle. You are demanding that this city will
respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those
who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me
say to you tonight, that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, it has
dignity, and it has worth. One day our society must come to see this. One day our society
will come to respect the sanitation worker if it is to survive, for the person who picks up
our garbage…is as significant as the physician, for if he doesn’t do his job, diseases are
rampant. All labor has dignity.
But you are doing another thing. You are reminding, not only Memphis, but you are
reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive
starvation wages…Do you know that most of the poor people in our country are working
every day? And they are making wages so low that they cannot begin to function in the
mainstream of the economic life of our nation…It is criminal to have people working on
a full-time basis and a full-time job getting a part-time income. You are here tonight to
demand that Memphis will do something about the conditions that our brothers face as
they work day in and day out for the well-being of the total community. You are here to
demand that Memphis will see the poor.
We’ve fought the civil rights battle over the years. We’ve done many electrifying things.
Montgomery, Alabama in 1956, 50,000 black men and women decided that it was
ultimately more honorable to walk the streets in dignity than to ride segregated buses in
humiliation…In 1960, by the thousands in this city and practically every city across the
South, students and even adults started sitting in at segregated lunch counters…Then in
1965 we went to Selma. We said, “We don’t have the right to vote.” And we stayed there,

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we walked the highways of Alabama until the nation was aroused and we finally got a
voting rights bill.
Now all of these were great movements. They did a great deal to end legal segregation
and guarantee the right to vote. With Selma and the voting rights bill one era of our
struggle came to a close and a new era came into being. Now our struggle is for genuine
equality which means economic equality. For we know it isn’t enough to integrate lunch
counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he
doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee? What does it profit a
man to be able to eat at the swankiest integrated restaurant when he doesn’t earn enough
money to take his wife out to dine? What does it profit one to have access to the hotels of
our city and the motels of our highway when we don’t earn enough money to take our
family on a vacation?...
Now let me say a word to those of you who are on strike. You have been out now for a
number of days, but don’t despair. Nothing worthwhile is gained without sacrifice. The
thing for you to do is stay together, and say to everybody in this community that you are
going to stick it out to the end until every demand is met, and that you are gonna say “We
ain’t gonna let nobody turn us around.” Let it be known everywhere that along with
wages and all of the other securities that you are struggling for, you are also struggling
for the right to organize and to be recognized. We can all get more together than we can
apart; we can get more organized together than we can apart….

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Handout G: Matching and Rephrasing

Whenever you are engaged in work that serves you are also struggling for the right to organize
humanity, and to be recognized.
You are reminding the nation that it is a crime which means economic equality.
Now our struggle is for genuine equality it has dignity, and it has worth
What does it profit one to have access to the for people to live in this rich nation and receive
hotels of our city and the motels of our starvation wages
highway
Let it be known everywhere that along with when we don’t earn enough money to take our
wages and all of the other securities that you family on a vacation?
are struggling for,

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