PHOTO BY BARNEY SELLERS/THE COMMERCIAL APPEAL FILES
Memphis sanitation workers march Feb. 13, 1968, the day after they began a strike that led Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city. This year's observance of King's death is a rallying point for labor.
WASHINGTON -- This year's commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination in Memphis during a 1968 labor dispute has galvanized union activists and progressive forces against what they see as a wholesale assault on labor rights.
Events scheduled for today and Monday's official 43rd anniversary have been organized by the AFL-CIO's "We Are One" campaign and individual unions from coast to coast.
Local 1733 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, which represented the striking sanitation workers King came to Memphis to assist, will hold its annual march to the government plaza Downtown Monday as well as events at the National Civil Rights Museum today.
"The attack on workers is something that's happening across the country, from state