Sandy Levin­son tack­les the issue of Reli­gion and pol­i­tics after read­ing Going Down Jeri­cho Road: The Mem­phis Strike, Mar­tin Luther King’s Last Cam­paign by Michael Hon­ey:

Almost every sin­gle chap­ter of Hon­ey’s book makes clear, once more, the absolute cen­tral­i­ty of church­es to the civ­il rights (and labor) move­ment in Mem­phis. This is most obvi­ous with regard to African-Amer­i­can church­es. King was only the most famous “rev­erend” to play a key role in the Move­ment. But there are also the white cler­gy (and rab­bi); usu­al­ly, they were pusil­lan­i­mous and hes­i­tant to move more than a step or two beyond their con­ser­v­a­tive mem­bers, most of whom sup­port­ed the egre­gious Jew-turned-Epis­co­palian May­or Hen­ry Loeb, who rivals in obdu­ra­cy George W. Bush. Still, it was their own turn­ing against the May­or, plus the con­se­quences of the assas­si­na­tion of King, that ulti­mate­ly led to the end­ing of the strike. There is sim­ply no way of writ­ing a his­to­ry of South­ern pol­i­tics (espe­cial­ly) with­out pay­ing lots of atten­tion to religion.

Polit­i­cal lib­er­als and sec­u­lar­ists, like myself, have to wres­tle with the mean­ing of this aspect of the Civ­il Rights Move­ment. Because of the “cul­ture wars” …, many, per­haps most, polit­i­cal lib­er­al-sec­u­lar­ists have been busy denounc­ing the role played by reli­gion in Amer­i­can pol­i­tics. But con­sid­er that the Catholic Bish­ops, who have, from my per­spec­tive, unfor­tu­nate­ly con­cen­trat­ed their ener­gies on the issues of abor­tion and same-sex mar­riage, have also engaged in elo­quent crit­i­cism of Amer­i­can actions in the Iraq War, and the Nation­al Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bish­ops is among the most impor­tant groups that still sup­port the idea of a vig­or­ous wel­fare state. One could obvi­ous­ly present oth­er exam­ples, includ­ing the attempts of Jim Wal­lis and oth­ers to present a more polit­i­cal­ly pro­gres­sive ver­sion of Evan­gel­i­cal politics.

This is not a ques­tion of learn­ing to talk about “val­ues” or pro­fess­ing one’s own reli­gios­i­ty. I remain a thor­ough­ly sec­u­lar Jew, with the oper­a­tive word, when all is said and done, being the adjec­tive. Rather, it is how “we” who have no reli­gious “faith” man­i­fest our respect for and make alliances with those who do have very deep reli­gious com­mit­ments and are, as with King, quite lit­er­al­ly will­ing to put their lives on the line in behalf of the most fun­da­men­tal val­ues of instan­ti­at­ing “equal con­cern and respect” even for those who pick up our garbage. (Jesse Jack­son, who is too often derid­ed, is sure­ly the most elo­quent speak­er in the coun­try today in behalf of King’s late-60’s com­mit­ment to what he called the “Poor Peo­ple’s Cam­paign” (which, of course, utter­ly failed, and not only because he was assassinated).)

I find myself in whole­heart­ed agree­ment with Levin­son. It’s true of so many crit­i­cal fights that we face as a soci­ety. Reli­gion can bring peo­ple togeth­er around good caus­es, and it can be a divi­sive force that hurts us all. I was going to let this post rest on that point.

But with Hous­ton’s mount­ed police rid­ing down strik­ing work­ers, there’s a great deal more to be said. Dr. King died fight­ing for jus­tice, and it isn’t far-fetched to think that he was killed when he was in part because his atten­tion was shift­ing from the spe­cif­ic issue of racial equal­i­ty to broad­er issues of eco­nom­ic equal­i­ty, and to a stance against the war in Viet­nam. Today, work­ers in Tope­ka are strik­ing at Goodyear plants. In Kansas City, jan­i­tors are on strike until they get fair wages. A wild­cat strike at a North Car­oli­na hog pro­cess­ing plant was prompt­ed by poor treat­ment by man­age­ment, an ever ris­ing work-pace, and the injuries that caus­es. There is a clear sense that things need to change.

One hun­dred and one years ago, work­ers and labor advo­cates gath­ered in Chica­go to push for a stronger labor move­ment. The AFL was seen as too slow and too nar­row in focus. The opti­misti­cal­ly named Inter­na­tion­al Work­ers of the World put togeth­er a plat­form, nice­ly sum­ma­rized by the image above, of short­er days, week­ends, and a fair workpace. 

The IWW used wild­cat strikes (strikes by non-union work­ers), sab­o­tage and com­mu­ni­ty activism to build a more vig­or­ous labor move­ment. IWW founder Eugene V. Debs got 6% of the pres­i­den­tial vote in 1912 on the Social­ist tick­et, at a time when thou­sands of local offices were held by oth­er mem­bers of that par­ty. It seemed like­ly that Social­ism would become a major part of Amer­i­can politics.

What stopped that from hap­pen­ing was reform with­in the sys­tem. Work­ers’ con­cerns were acknowl­edged and addressed. The nation changed, not by becom­ing social­ist, but by reform­ing capitalism.

When Taft-Hart­ley passed in the late ’40s, it marked the begin­ning of a long decline in the pow­er of work­ing peo­ple. The effects were obscured because a lot of work­ers already had strong union con­tracts, and nation­al 40 hour work week laws, min­i­mum wage laws and work­place safe­ty laws had addressed a lot of the issues that brought labor togeth­er as a nation­al polit­i­cal force. 

Part of what we are see­ing now in labor pol­i­tics is the recog­ni­tion that the good union con­tracts are most­ly gone. Com­pa­nies are find­ing ways to renege on promised pen­sions, and work­ers are hav­ing a hard time orga­niz­ing to get a voice that can bal­ance the force of man­age­ment. Taft-Hart­ley’s restric­tions on who can union­ize are being used to ever greater advan­tage, shift­ing more and more peo­ple into posi­tions that are super­vi­so­ry on paper only, block­ing those work­ers from union­iz­ing. Oth­er work­ers are giv­en exact­ly too lit­tle work to qual­i­fy for full-time jobs under union con­tracts. And fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing work­er safe­ty, min­i­mum wages and max­i­mum hours are being nar­rowed down, elim­i­nat­ing the min­i­mal pro­tec­tion that non-union labor enjoys.

It’s time for a new reform and a new deal with work­ers. And set­ting a new min­i­mum wage can’t be the only step Con­gress takes on that path.