Just Do It

It's More Than Just a Dream

by Deesha Dyer

Sun., April 6, 3-5 p.m., Arch Street Methodist, 55 N. Broad St., 215-670-5855, morethanjustadream.

Forty years ago this weekend, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down in Tennessee while supporting the Memphis Sanitation Workers strike. In his spirit, the Philadelphia Officers and Workers Rising, Jobs with Justice and the Student Labor Action committee are hosting It's More Than Just a Dream, a service and rally to commemorate the assassination and remind the community that the struggle for civil rights in the workplace still continues.

Sunday's service will end a weeklong campaign for the security guards of AlliedBarton, who, like the Memphis workers of 1968, are asking for better wages, affordable health care and improved working conditions. "We want to give the guards from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Temple and Penn a platform to educate the faith community about the campaign and why it is important to the general public," says Fabricio Rodriguez, director of Jobs With Justice in Philadelphia. Ultimately, Rodriguez hopes that negotiations will insure the guards (97 percent of whom are African-American) rights, proper training and fair compensation. A sweet dream, indeed.