Freedom is a constant struggle: Birmingham’s MLK march (with video)

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – After a wreath laying ceremony at the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. statue in the famous Kelly Ingram Park, hundreds marched from Birmingham City Hall to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The whole march was steeped in the past and present of civil rights struggle. (Video below)

Remembering the mighty history of the struggles against racism and discrimination, the march also joined in the many streams of struggle today for jobs, justice and equality. The modern-day Birmingham civil rights movement has been a vibrant center of struggle against Alabama’s infamous anti-immigrant law.

The march ended in a rally at the historic Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. The Sixteenth Street Church was the scene of one of the most heinous acts of racist violence during the civil rights struggles of the 1960s. On Sept. 15, 1963, Ku Klux Klan members detonated a powerful bomb at the church killing four young African American girls attending Sunday school.

The march was spirited and festive with singing and chanting, including standards of the civil rights movement and modern slogans.

Rev from Scott Marshall on Vimeo.

Photo: (PW/Scott Marshall)

 

 


CONTRIBUTOR

Scott Marshall
Scott Marshall

Scott has been a life long trade unionist and was active in rank and file reform movements in the Teamsters, Machinists and Steelworkers unions in the 1970s and '80s. He was co-chair of the Save Our Jobs committee of USWA local 1834 at Pullman Standard in Chicago and active in nationwide organizing against plant shutdowns and layoffs. He was a founder of the unemployed organization Jobs or Income Now (Join), in Chicago, and the National Congress of Unemployed Organizations in the 1980s. Scott remains active in SOAR (Steelworkers Active Organized Retirees). He lives in Chicago.

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