Letting Justice Roll in Memphis
Forty years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. went to Memphis to rally with striking sanitation workers who had suffered under terrible working conditions. King would be assassinated there, but his fight for basic decency for all workers lives on. Last week, the Let Justice Roll Living Wage Campaign, of which the Union for Reform Judaism is a member, sponsored an interfaith celebration in Memphis to commemorate Dr. King’s advocacy and to push for living wages in Memphis and around the country.
The minimum wage has eroded significantly in the last 40 years. In 1968, the federal minimum wage was $1.60, roughly $9.75 when adjusted for inflation. Today, the minimum wage stands at just $5.85 (and will rise to $7.25 by the end of 2009). “Workers should not have to choose between paying the rent and buying food for their children,” Rev. Jennifer Kottler, Director of Let Justice Roll, said at the event. “A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.”
Last week’s interfaith celebration ended with the 150 or so faith leaders in attendance echoing Dr. King’s 1968 call (paraphrased from the prophet Amos): “Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all of God’s children. … Now is the time for justice to roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream. Now is the time.”