Gathering demands jobs and human needs

Some 60 people gathered in Providence, R.I., at a grassroots All-Peoples Assembly for Jobs and Human Needs on Jan. 16 to honor and carry on the words and works of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The event was chaired by Mary Kay Harris, lead organizer of Direct Action for Rights and Equality, a Providence-based community organization whose membership and mission is for low-income communities of color. The keynote speaker was Larry Holmes, national organizer for the Bail Out the People Movement.

In attendance were representatives of the Rhode Island Unemployed Council; the George Wiley Center; the Rhode Island Public Housing Tenants Association; HUD Tenant Project; “Behind-The-Walls” prison campaign of DARE; Green Party; Providence Community Library; Jobs with Justice; Immigrants United; Women’s Fightback Network; Fight Imperialism Stand Together; the Laborers Union; United Steelworkers of America; UniteHere; the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; State Senator Harold Metts; and State Representative Joe Almeida.

Harris opened the assembly with a call for a moment of silence for the people of Haiti and Henry Shelton, who was recently hospitalized with a stroke. Shelton is the founder of the George Wiley Center, a Pawtucket, R.I.-based anti-poverty organization.

Holmes energized and inspired everyone with a call to study and carry on Dr. King’s campaign for jobs or income and an “economic bill of rights.” He urged everyone to study the lessons and “the real legacy” of King, which ultimately was the understanding that racism, unemployment, poverty and war are intertwined and inseparable.