Respect for Human Dignity
From the AFL-CIO
It was 54 years ago this week that President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “to promote a more abiding commitment to freedom, a more constant pursuit of justice and a deeper respect for human dignity.” More than half a century later, the labor movement is continuing that fight.
Just this weekend, working people took the struggle for social and economic justice to the streets, joining together at the White House and across the country to stand up for the rights and dignities of our immigrant brothers and sisters.
While in Memphis, Tennessee, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination earlier this year, AFL‑CIO President Richard Trumka reflected on the intertwined fight at the heart of the labor movement.
The various struggles for our fundamental rights—from a living wage to voting to family unification—are ultimately tied together.
At the AFL‑CIO’s convention last fall, working people declared our commitment to that universal fight, resolving:
- We will stand against racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism, sexism and homophobia—against every kind of hatred and every form of politics that seeks to divide working people;
- We will stand for the idea that every person is of equal dignity—that we are a country ruled by the principle of one person, one vote, not one dollar, one vote; and
- We utterly oppose fascism and the idea that those who fight fascism are the same who raise the swastika and put on the white hood. There is no moral equivalence between the men and women who fill our military graveyards and the armies of hate they defeated.
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