Marching toward freedom

We must guard against being fooled by false slogans such as ‘right to work’.  It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights.  Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone.  Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer, and there are no civil rights.  We do not intend to let them do this to us.  Our weapon is our vote.  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’

Whenever native St. Paul educator, community activist,  and communicator, Yusef Mgeni, is on deck at Thursdays’ Conversations with Al McFarlane webcast, you can feel their five decades long professional and personal friendship.

And it’s like I’m back in graduate school at the University of Missouri, Kansas City soaking in all the knowledge I can.  As I write this article on the morning of Dr. King’s National Holiday celebration, and on the same day of a rally and march, ‘Labor Unions in a Movement to Get Equity’, I return to academia.

“The real test of time is whether we will be able to educate successive generations about the real contributions of Dr. King and not the sanitized version that’s dusted off around this time each year. ‘Letter from a Birmingham Jail’ which was written on toilet paper, is one of the classic pieces of American literarature in the  20^th Century,” Mgeni said last week.

“We need to encourage young people to read King’s words so they can understand the bravery and resilience of participants in the Civil Rights movement. The movement not only benefitted Black people, but white women in particular.  It was intended to protect humanity, and for a short while, it did,” he said. 

“Out of the Civil Rights struggle and under the leadership of MLK, who became the engine for social justice movements all around the world, quite a few humanitarian organizations rose to the occasion to call for change. The Grey Panthers, the senior citizens’ movement, and the Native American movement, the LBGTQ, yuppies, and yippies communities all stood on the shoulders of prominent and unsung civil rights icons.  People put their futures and lives on the line. Children went to jail. The protests demanded that America remember that during Jim Crow and beyond, America lynched a Black man every 2 ½ days,” Mgeni said.

According to Mgeni, the Civil Rights movement was punctuated by great protest marches.  The most significant was when the late Congressman John Robert Lewis was beaten unconscious by the Dallas County Police Department who had deputized 400 KKK members to assist them in preventing the march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights. It was successful because in a third attempt, participation went from a few 100 to 54,000 with Black freedom marchers being joined by whites,  by people representing a variety of religious backgrounds, and by other people of color.  It was clear this movement was not mono-cultural, Mgeni said.   “It’s one we all benefit from today.  Unions began to strengthen as the numerous crusades led to the establishment of immigration reform, and expanded international human rights campaigns.”

On April 4, 1967, the last year of MLK’s life, he gave a speech most never knew about or read.  He delivered the powerful message at the Riverside Church in NYC. He came out against the war in Viet Nam, Mgeni said. 

A year later, he was murdered on that very date. 

Mgeni said prior to transitioning, King could not get a book published, was not invited to give any speeches or write opinion articles for newspapers and magazines, was not a guest at any national dinner gatherings, legislative or public policy functions, and was ignored and isolated. 

“Even Black leaders such as Ralph Bunche with the United Nations, Whitney Young, President of the Urban League, and Roy Wilkins, President of the NAACP turned on him. They told him he should pay attention to the domestic agenda and not meddle in international affairs.  What a travesty of logic!  How can you be in one country that perpetuates poison, harm, and death and not have a voice in trying to correct it?  The real Dr. King was not just a solider in the war on poverty, but a general in the fight for liberation,” Mgeni said.

Kerry Jo Felder, Teamsters Union  Local 120 organizer said MLK came out of organized labor.  “It was all about the Poor People’s Campaign focusing on education, housing, and jobs.” 

A rally and march were held on Monday, January 17^th, at the Hennepin County Government Plaza commemorating the King Holiday, celebrating his contribution to human kind, and bringing attention to the critical need in critical times for equality in the workplace, especially when it comes to the welfare and wellness of children. 

Shaun Laden is president of Minnesota Federation of Teachers Chapter 59 a union chapter with approximately 1,200 members.  Laden is an ESP (Education Support Professional) working in the Minneapolis School District of 30,000 students.  As an active union leader, Laden says, “Our members’ work is key.  We like to say, ‘we make school happen!’  During the pandemic, it was ESPs who were required to be on site providing services and support for first responders and health care workers’ children.  Classroom assistants coordinate transportation, family support, and social and emotional group resources, serve as family liaison, and are on hand as   translators and media specialists as needed. 

“We are calling upon Minneapolis Public Schools’ elected leadership to direct their administration to distribute equitable state and federal funds” Laden said.  “Historically, ESPs have made poverty wages of about $24,000 annually. They pay the same amount for hospitalization as an administrator earning $125,000 annually.  Where’s the fairness in that?  In these difficult and uncertain times, our work is even more essential.  It’s a collective in action to help save our children.”

Rev. Brenda Johnson is an ordained clergy of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and a long time ESP. Her current position with the Minneapolis School District is described as a ‘school success program assistant’.  “I work with families and incarcerated youth who deserve to get the education they need no matter what, whether being sentenced or in out-of-home placement. My goal is to constantly interrupt and thus eradicate the vicious school-to-prison pipeline by any means necessary” she said.

Johnson said “Black and Brown students are at the bottom at all academic levels.  It’s not very welcoming to be a teacher nowadays, and more educational support professionals are needed.  How do we make the profession attractive for people to want to commit to being the very best they can be and give the most of themselves to educate, nurture, and guide future generations?” 

Johnson and other panel members called for training more Black and Brown educators, licensed and non-licensed.  80% of public school educators are white. “The the way you see people is how you treat them,” Johnson said, “and the way you treat them is who they become.  There is no pipeline for Black and Brown candidates, no concerted recruitment, and no effort to support vested interests of the Black community.  Even more important is the equality, relevance, and truthfulness in how the criterion for licensing is being defined and who is preparing the candidates,” she said.

“I never will forget how pleased and proud I was when I looked over at the growing crowd outside the courthouse as we awaited the verdict in the Derek Chauvin trial and Native Americans standing with us.  It was powerful!  BIPOC (Black, Indian, People of Color) communities uniting for a common cause and in support of one another no matter the outcome,” said Dr. Samantha Hill, Vice-President of AFSCME Local 34. 

Hill has been a Case Manager and Marriage and Family Therapist in Hennepin County for 17 years.  “I think what we’re saying now is ‘no more’.  No more poor treatment, low wages, unsafe working conditions, lack of quality education, poor health, and no more hope deferred. We need something different. Teachers need to be excellent and great mentors. Trades and advanced technology need to be introduced at a younger age.  My philosophy is college teaches you to work for other people. Trades teach you to work for yourself,” Hill said.

Hennepin County’s general salary adjustment of 2.5% is a losing proposition for County workers who are experiencing the current increase inflation range from 5.5 to 7%.  “There is no way to keep up.  Student loan payments are astronomical.  We are asking for hazard pay for volunteers who at the peak of the pandemic worked tirelessly and at the risk of their own health. We want reimbursement of costs for some who had no internet service to do their work remotely. We want the same pay of social workers and psychologists who were first in the field and get paid $10,000 more when we all do the same work.       

Kamau King, a regular panelist on “Conversations with Al McFarlane, a retired corporate attorney for Coca Cola and now residing in Atlanta said communities need to look at how schools are funded. Noting that he grew up in an activist union household, he said, “As long as we continue to base school funding on property taxes, it puts Black communities at a disadvantage. Our real estate has seldom been valued as high as white homeowners. Consequently, our schools get less.”

Ronisha Buckner, AFSCME Local 35 Sgt at Arms, co-chairs of the union’s anti-discrimination committee, and is a team coordinator for the Local’s Member Action Team (MAT). The team is responsible for communicating, programming, and the organizing for its 2,500 workers.

Brianne Carmichael, another member of Local 34, works as a financial case aide for adult, disabled, and senior protective services.  “We connect culturally relevant and diverse and inclusive services.  In the 18 months I worked with the, Project Diversity initiative, we made progress in tackling racial disparities’ reduction and calling for collective grieving with expanded bereavement leave.

Yunuen Avila, a member of AFSCME Local 34, is a MAT coordinator, an anti-discrimination committee member, and a human service representative who manages MAT leaders.  The team acts to protect and support, members in the workplace.  “We are all ‘allies in solidarity’ and I would say to the powers-that-be, let’s at least be honest.  Leaders can fix this.” 

On January 19^th a Union Information picket was held at theMinneapolis Public Schools’ South Minneapolis Hub were to bring awareness and offer “gratitude, support, and respect for front line workers.”  

“No one rises to low expectations,” Mgeni says. “If our children grow up in nurturing and loving environments, they will feel valued and have hope. Expectations for most generations of youth of color have been so low that it was assumed we weren’t going anywhere, and we were not capable of success.  The same kind of ‘the best there can be’ quality environment, resources, preparation, organization, compassion, and support can go a long way with workers, as well, especially those who are caretakers of our children.  We must also teach parents to stand up for their children,” he said.  “My wife and I were at our children’s schools on the first day. The teachers got our business cards, knew where to contact us immediately, answered the questions we had prepared before parent conferences, understood the expectations for our children that we had made quite clear. We knew the school board members, and today take great pride in our successful offspring.”

Children ought to be able to get a quality education wherever they are. As a retired educator and single mother, I sometimes went overboard in my activism for my children and my students.  As my youngest daughter, then in junior high, once responded to a group of friends trying to entice her to go to the beach with them, said, “Have you met my Mama?”  Mutual respect and love.