Tonight in Detroit, where hundreds of activists are gathered for the annual AFL-CIO Martin Luther King Jr. Day Observance, participants will honor several individuals for their outstanding contributions to working people. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis will receive the top honor for her extraordinary dedication and commitment to improving the lives of workers throughout her lifetime. The At the River I Stand award is given to a national leader who has demonstrated an unyielding commitment to civil rights and workers’ rights.

Most people remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s legendary 1963 Washington, D.C, “I Have a Dream” speech. But what most don’t know, AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Arlene Holt Baker said at the AFL-CIO’s Annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and National Conference in Detroit, is that “the seeds of Dr. King’s dream were sown first,” in the Motor City.

In Detroit—a historic crossroads for both the labor and civil rights movements—more than 550 activists and leaders of those movements will honor the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the AFL-CIO’s  annual Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Observance and National Conference.

AFSCME is celebrating its 75 anniversary with a yearlong series of events. The observances include a traveling exhibit of the union’s 75 years of fighting for workers’ rights and the middle class from its founding in Wisconsin in 1936 to today.

This is an excerpt of a cross-post from the American Constitution Society Blog by Angelia Wade, associate general counsel for the AFL-CIO. The post coincided with the recent opening of the King National Memorial.

When he was assassinated in April 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was in Memphis lending his support to striking garbage sanitation workers who were seeking to have their union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), recognized so they could negotiate a contract that raised their standard of living.

On the eve of the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C., AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee Saunders writes in this cross-post from AFSCME why the nation needs to revive King’s dream.

Hundreds of thousands of Americans are expected to gather this weekend in Washington, D.C., for the dedication of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial. Few can doubt that this is an extraordinary and historic moment. Only four other Americans—George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt—have been given this honor: a national memorial on the hallowed grounds of our National Mall. As the first memorial to honor an African American, and the first to honor an individual who was never elected to high office, the memorial for Dr. King stands as a symbol of progress and purpose, dedicated to a man whose vision and courage transformed our nation and gave hope to the world.

J.W. Cleary, 55, says he has spent most of his adult life “with a union card in one hand and an NAACP card in the other.”

“Unions and the NAACP go hand-in-hand,” says the Paducah, Ky., United Steelworkers (USWA) member and longtime local NAACP president. “The NAACP fights for equality. In a union, everybody is equal.”

Tomorrow in Memphis, the 1,300 Memphis sanitation workers whose 1968 strike for the right to join a union and collectively bargain was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s last campaign, will be honored in the second part of their induction into the U.S. Department of Labor Hall of Fame.

Barb Kucera, editor at www.workdayminnesota.org, sends us this from Minneapolis.

Chanting “We Are One,” thousands gathered at the Cathedral of St. Paul Monday evening, then marched to the state Capitol to show their support for worker rights and a strong middle class.

This is a cross-post from the Wisconsin State AFL-CIO by Karen Hickey in AFL-CIO Field Communications.

At more than 1,000 events across the country, communities joined together in unity to mark the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.—and to protect the very rights he died to protect. Building on the momentum that started here in Wisconsin, nurses, firefighters, teachers, people of faith, students and community members stood together in streets, parks and state Capitol buildings across America.