Labor Community Tackles Issue of Racial Justice in Recent Town Hall

“Labor remains the link between those who struggle for economic opportunity and equal rights, and those who already have them,” said Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton at the “Race and the Labor Movement Town Hall” event, which was co-hosted by the AFL-CIO and the NAACP on Monday. The event, which packed the room to capacity, featured music, poetry, speeches, and an open question and answer period with five panelists. The speakers challenged those in attendance to critically think about the relationship between racial justice and economic justice, and the ways that labor and civil rights movements have worked and should continue to work together to achieve both.  In the past year alone, many of the same people who participated in racial justice demonstrations also participated in the Fight for 15 protests. Panelist Eugene Puryear insisted, though, that the labor movement could always do more. “We in BLM have the ability to shut things down in some senses, but labor has the ultimate power to shut things down,” he said. Tiffany Flowers built on that by saying that a large part of those in the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement are also union members; she herself is part of UFCW Local 400. As Holmes Norton pointed out, “Common interests, especially economic interests, brought the two [movements] together, and it has remained one of the oldest and most enduring coalitions.”

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