Martin Luther King Jr. is best known as a champion for the civil rights of minorities. But he also worked tirelessly for workers’ rights, which he saw as an essential force for eradicating poverty and economic injustice. In a speech delivered in 1965, King said: “The labor movement [in the United States] was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old-age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and above all new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life.”
King’s life and work is remembered in the United States on the third Monday of January each year with a federal holiday that calls upon Americans not to take a day of rest, but to devote their time and effort to community service. King once said: “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: ‘What are you doing for others?’” Each year, Americans attempt to answer that question by volunteering for a wide range of activities such as fundraising for charities and collecting and distributing food to the needy.