On Aug. 26, two days before the official dedication of the historic Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, D.C., the AFL-CIO and The King Center will host a national symposium to explore how far we have come in fulfilling King’s dream of a nation of economic equality and justice for all people.

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.

This morning, I interviewed Martin Luther King III after he spoke to the AFL-CIO Executive Council, meeting here today in Washington, D.C.

At a jammed Electrical Workers (IBEW) hall in Trenton yesterday, New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech reminded the audience of union, community and civil rights activists that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

“understood the link between economic justice and social justice, and that the fight for labor rights and civil rights was the same struggle.”

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.

Herbert Parson, Alvin Turner and Joe Warren, were part of the 1968 AFSCME sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed April 1968 while helping the workers fight for justice.

The nation is “facing a frontal assault on the American way of life, and the prime target is the hard-working American family,” write AFSCME President Gerald McEntee and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.)  in a column in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Their column marking the 43rd anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.