1-11-13: Lines Between Us - Martin Luther King, Jr., as a Voice for Labor

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KwameMountaintop-0111.mp3

"You are doing many things here in this struggle. you are demanding that this city respect the dignity of labor.  so often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs.  of those who are not in the so-called big jobs.  but let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity, it has dignity, and it has worth."

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said those words in an address to striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, just two weeks before he was murdered on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel.  In the last spring of his life, Dr. King spoke forcefully about worker’s rights and the dignity of work.  He took a pause from the Poor People’s Campaign in New York to travel to Memphis to support the sanitation workers. 

Baltimore’s Center Stage is presenting a play that imagines a conversation between Dr. King and a maid at the Lorraine Motel during this period, the night before his assassination.  It’s called The Mountaintop, and it runs through February 24th.  Tom Hall talks with Kwame Kwei-Armah, the the Artistic Director of Center Stage who's directing the play.