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June 30, 2014

Civil Rights Activists Join Nissan Worker Protest During "Freedom Summer" Commemoration 
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Civil rights activists who traveled to Missisippi to register
African-American voters half a century ago reunited to mark the 50th
anniversary of Freedom Summer. In June 1964, some 1,000 out-of-state
volunteers risked their lives as part of the massive voter registration
campaign. Late last week, veteran activists including Julian Bond,
Marian Wright Edelman and Bob Moses gathered at Tougaloo College to
celebrate the milestone and mark the continuation of the civil rights
struggle. As part of the celebration, a group of student activists
joined with workers from a Nissan plant in Canton, Mississippi, who say
they are facing threats and intimidation in their attempt to unionize.
The actor and activist Danny Glover addressed the crowd at the rally.

Danny Glover: "So these students, we veterans of the civil rights
movement, we are here right now to demand that we want justice right
now. Not tomorrow, right now. The concentration of wealth in this
country among the most powerful people in this country is just as bad as
it was in 1846! 1846! 1846 was in the beginning stages of the Industrial
Revolution, before the abolition of slavery. So we've got to challenge
that, and we can only challenge by organizing. We're going to create
another Nissan, a Nissan that respects us as human beings, that respects
our human rights! Workers' rights are civil rights!"

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had also seen the connection between workers
rights and civil rights. He was in Memphis, Tennessee, to support
striking sanitation workers when he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

 

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