hello i'm richard fowler in for tom hartman live from washington d.c. and i'm sam sachs and here's what's coming up tonight on the big picture. fast food workers in new york city took to the streets today demanding better working conditions and better wages we'll have the latest on the ground from this historic strike also it's been forty five years since martin luther king jr gave his last speech to the american people but to this day questions still remain surrounding his death who is really behind the assassination of one of america's greatest heroes and america's poised to sign on to yet another so-called free trade deal why is president obama considering a plan that will help corporations prosper even more while the rest of us are left to suffer.

so today on the forty fifth anniversary of martin luther king jr's debt fast food workers in new york city are going on strike and there couldn't be a more fitting way to honor the great civil rights leader on april third one nine hundred sixty eight the day before his assassination king gave his final and some would argue most powerful speech at the mason temple in memphis tennessee condemning racial injustice corporate power and wealth inequality he reminded the audience that the struggle for racial equality was inseparable from the fight for economic justice. you are going to. hit. we were. good here brave guy you are a mind. not only metal. but you are reminded of a major. battle. cry are. for people.

who live there. read the starvation way he'd ha in the months leading up to that speech king openly threw his support behind the memphis sanitation workers strike memphis is mostly black janitors and waste collectors demanded better wages for working conditions and an end to racial discrimination and the right to officially join the local chapter of the american federation of state county and municipal employees asked me if the workers had voted to join the union but city officials didn't recognize their decision king saw the sanitation workers strike as part of a broader movement for justice both racial and economic that was necessary for the united states to fulfill its founding ideals forty five years after his death king's vision has yet to be satisfied unfortunately while new york's fast food workers struggle to get by on minimum wage profits at take out conglomerates like

young brands and the mcdonald's corporation have skyrocketed and like memphis imitation workers in the one nine hundred sixty s. today's fast food workers want better pay and the right to unionize however as pointed out in a recent article in salon dot com current labor laws have all but allowed businesses to shut down is that you need zation movements by bullying and intimidating their workers for new york's fast food employees then a strike is the only way to get their message out to the public for more about that strike in the legacy of martin luther king i'm joined by independent labor journalist sarah jaffe sarah welcome to the show again good to have you thanks for having me sarah just give us updated what happened today. you know what was the crowd like what exactly are they asking for was the support on the streets there new york. well the crowd was the total of workers i didn't get a final exact estimate but they were saying that between four hundred five hundred workers were going to be on strike at somewhere around fifty different franchises

across the city that includes mcdonald's burger king wendy's domino's pizza and from what i saw today people who were cited there were more workers there were several managed to open today because the majority of their staff was out on strike there is at least three locations that had that problem. so who's who are going to support as you see for the striking workers out there other organizations on the streets and there were definitely other organizations out in the streets one of the things that really was different this time around the reason in part that they sed chose today to strike. as you mentioned of martin luther king's assassination and there is a lot of involvement by local clergy and there were congregations that had opted different passive locations in their neighborhood and they really came out to support and they're going to be back in tomorrow walking the workers back to work and letting their bosses know that if there is an intimate it will be watching and

so that was even more a presence this time around than it was last november so sara when you say people strike i think the whole idea of striking a sort of cause an economic impact on their employer do you feel that economic impact today you know how much money you think might have been lost and if so what effect that i have on the you know the residual effects for those those restaurant owners you know the first time around these strikes were really not calculated to have a huge economic impact they were much more to send a message to the masses that the workers weren't just going to take it anymore this time around like i said there were several stores that actually had the majority of their workers out on strike now these one day strike still aren't going to really put a dent in the the owner's profits what they do again like i said as they build energy for the next time i spoke to a worker. who had been fired from his job at burger king for just signing a union petition and because that's illegal and his boss is not bright enough to

not mention that that was what was being fired he was actually walked back in with some of the organizers from this campaign and less an undergrad lander and they got him his job back and that kind of thing and along with going out and strike and then walking back in getting your job back it really emboldens workers to take more action to have people have more people join the campaign so this is really more of a rolling tactic to get more people involved than it is to really at this point cause economic damage we know strokes are also very much connected to political pressure what political pressure we seen in the city on the state for these workers the support from the pall of. for these workers i mean we've seen support from like i said several different members of the city council christine quinn who wants to be our next mayor is apparently speaking at the rally that i'm missing right now to be on your show with the pacifier. it's ok i've seen christine quinn speak.

there is also the impact that this movement is having on city and state politics is worth noting new york last week the city passed finally the paid sick days bill that's been going for three years and the state passed a minimum wage increase so and you know the people that i've spoken to that are involved in this campaign has said that these things would not be possible without lowish workers like the fast food workers really organizing and standing up for themselves and demanding better. sarah we've seen just over the last decade and probably two decades and you go back three decades just an exodus of manufacturing jobs that used to be were commie was built on these kind of pretty good paying factory working jobs in our economy is more and more these service sector jobs we're seeing by fast food workers so doesn't that make what's happening today all the more crucial considering this is where the bulk of employment is going in america over the next decade to the foreseeable future and absolutely in the point that i really like to make up and about this is that those factory jobs weren't

great jobs because factory work inherently pays more those jobs were great jobs because people struck and fought and sometimes died for the right cavity and then over the years but built those jobs into it minimum wage family sustaining jobs and the fact that those jobs aren't disappearing is in part because as we do less factory work by hand now we have more machines to do it but also because now they can take those jobs overseas you can't take mcdonald's to china and still serve people in brooklyn you have to actually have employees in that store until they figure out a way to get robots that will flip burgers and so those are the jobs that we have in the. so the jobs that have to become good jobs the same way that working at a ford factory became a good job because the workers stand up and demand right it you know recent studies have shown that something like fast food workers in new york city you'll only make twenty five percent of what they need to actually survive in the city so it's it does kind of resemble that that state that factory workers were in before the union

movement and you know in the in the middle of the the last century there. we saw we've seen another fast food strike a few months back we've seen wal-mart workers on strike we saw the longshoremen on strike seems like a lot of these labor movements have these labor strikes have come out since the occupy movement several years ago and in syria you know you cover that we had you on the show several times during that do you see do you see a connection there this sort of activism that was started at the end of two thousand and eleven and now these residual labor strikes that we've seen every few months since then that are building and building and building. absolutely i was just talking to you before i came down here rabbi michael steinberg who is a one of the many clergy that are supporting this movement who is also very supportive of the occupy i mean and he said to me you know i think that that really . has been the public the problem that we have that it really said you know our biggest problem in this country right now is that we have a massive concentration of wealth at the top and not enough for everybody else

around and when you see when that is sort of laid out and made plain for people in that way it's a lot easier to give us a language talk about it right it's and you're seeing that reflected here the community group that is organizing these fast food workers new york communities for change was deeply involved in the occupy movement deeply involved in occupy homes and home defenders league and they're coming out of that same mindset and they came out of that same organizing and it's all connected so serious seems to be it seems news though that there has to be because of this movement toward the left in this country i think we saw that with a twenty five a lecture on the wall street folks that voted for the president to be like sam mentioned all these various strikes that are happening is this sort of the change is going to take our country back into an era of real real and true thoughtful justice i mean i hope so i'm a little you know cynical about that when we just had the election that as you said was one pretty clearly on these sort of class issues and the president's takeaway

from that is that we should cut a security so i'm i'm hoping we're moving further left and i would like to see some more pressure left word and the democrats who still hold elected office and still think that compromising things like people's basic retirement security are a good idea and also sort of a lot of folks out here watching tonight that are saying you know we're with these workers that are for that are striking in new york city how can they find out more information about where these workers strike and how they're going to get involved and support the movement. there is a website there fast food forward campaign does have a website and online petitions do you can sign there are. organizing going on definitely go in some other cities that i'm not quite sure about yet but i know that this is moving it's spreading on and the wal-mart strikes again work or takings nicer and low wage workers are organizing in lots of different places where and carwash workers organizing we're seeing warehouse workers there and i think chances are wherever you are there's something like this going on up there we

appreciate you so much for being on the program and we want to stay in solitary with all those workers striking in new york city. thank you. law enforcement agencies believe that the white the white supremacy behind the last month of murder of the public officials in colorado and texas the right wing hate groups also behind the assassination of martin luther king we'll find out after the break.

this is trash to get rid of. but it's also a treasure. worth fighting for. and a trap was no way out. the. colors.

this is. going to take three months for free. range of three. three. three. three months. for your media projects a free media. and welcome back this anniversary of dr king's assassination comes amid new killings in recent weeks that authorities believe were carried out by white supremacists first

it was the murder of colorado state prison chief tom clements who was gunned down at his front door by a white supremacist who was later killed in a gun battle with police colorado authorities are now log looking for two more members of a white supremacist gang who they believe were involved in the killing and in texas this last week at the kaufman county district attorney and his wife were found shot to death in their home just months after the county's assistant district attorney was also shot dead near his court house offices authorities believe the neo nazi white supremacist organization known as the area of brotherhood may be involved in both murders and in houston this week an assistant u.s. attorney working on a racketeering case against the area and brotherhood resigned reportedly out of fear for his own life and the life of his family tragically this environment of hate and violence across america is very similar to the environment forty five years ago when a single shot was fired from the lorraine motel in memphis tennessee killing dr

martin luther king jr men who shot dr king james earl ray was brought into custody two months later yesterday never before now. before seen video of ray just after he was arrested was released by the shelby county registrar in tennessee the video includes ray being read his rights being stripped searched by police as well as interviews with potential jurors for the trial but despite these new videos in those forty five years since the assassination of dr king the real story behind his death of why he was killed has rarely been told and today as these cycles of history come around again this story is more important than ever so joining us now is lamar waldron historian and co-author with tom hartman of the book legacy of secrecy the long shadow of the j.f.k. assassination lamar welcome back to the show great to be with you so you know yes today is the anniversary of dr king's assassination but it's always important to

look back at what happened and to remember it why is this especially relevant today though well you really hit the nail on the head when you explained about the you know the officials in texas and the colorado prison official and then the fellow down used to be resigning and it is just really true that that murder is combination that we had in one thousand nine hundred sixty it resulted in king's assassination of hate violence and money that same kind of combination is still around today and even more than that from from the study idea that you know i lived through nine hundred sixty eight when the when i did the book and when tom and i were looking into this you go back and begin to things and it's really shocking just how similar today's media and political climate is to nine hundred sixty eight we've got the hatred and violence driven by money in politics and it is in a different form and of course the violence the violence that you cited the start

of this show that's just the tip of the iceberg you know there was the king day a bomb plot in smoke on washington back in two thousand and eleven and people forget there were arrests. and irresolute ten states for various plots to assassinate president obama in the first year that he was elected and to rest in tin states so this is just a massive problem that was around back then and it's still around today and last but not least the big reason we should never forget about dr king's assassination even when it's not the anniversary of that tragic if it is that the criminal investigation of dr king's murder was never really finished and there was a lot of critical information withheld from president clinton in the ninety's and it's still being withheld from president obama today about that assassination and it really goes to the early heart of why king was murdered and killed and i think that leaving the next question so well i mean there's so much that has not been told on the story but why was dr king really murdered it simplest explanation and

you can see why this list this those tight end the way things are today was because of money and racism fueled by conservative politicians and their large corporate backers you know and we see that same deadly combination today the money is important and again with the arion brotherhood you know it's not like these people are just racists they're making a lot they're racists who are making a lot of money so when in their case you know probably millions of dollars are at stake that really amps up the odds of the the consequences into you have these murders and you also have people with money and means were able to pull off the murders and assist those who do that which is why slay the colorado prison official play to texas after them where he was killed so you know you had this the same. deadly mix and we can or look at conservative politicians who've been spreading this racism for many decades we also can't overlook the people who are usually

overlooked which are a large corporate backers who are very respectable large corporations and political propaganda. sheens but they're actually fueling a lot of this hatred because of course people from the area of brotherhood to do regular conservative voters they're getting these massive doses of corporate propaganda every day often over the public airwaves i mean radio which is full of this stuff i grew up in georgia i remember hearing all of this racist stuff aerial virtually racist in the sixty's it may not be as overt today but it is certainly out there and then we see it in terms of the voter suppression efforts and everything else so it was that deadly combination that came together in one thousand nine hundred sixty eight and led to dr jean's assassination so we'd the shelby county registrar just released these videos of james aurora being taken into custody. but he really wasn't the lone man he might have been the guy who fired the

bullet here but when we're looking at who exactly killed dr king we can't stop it james earl ray ten ways that's exactly right because a congressional committee the house select committee on assassinations in one thousand nine hundred nine officially concluded and i should point out this was headed by pioneering black congressman lewis to x. you know so it wasn't it wasn't you know any kind of a real whitewash or or cover up on the house on the part of the committee at all. they concluded in one thousand seventy nine this congressional committee the official determination of congress was that dr king was killed by a conspiracy in the james or already who was basically a low level drug runner. for a southern mafia organization acted for money so that was their official conclusion so you would think that the f.b.i. and other organizations the justice department would be have worked very hard since nine hundred seventy nine to to figure out exactly who put up that money to pay

james earl ray. and i should point out to that investigation by by our congressman stokes it was a multimillion dollar investigation years long investigation that ruled out suspects. a lot of people still believe today hoover in the f.b.i. people don't realize hoover was first proposed as a suspect by j.b. stoner one of several white supremacist attorneys that james earl ray had you know the cia that stokes in his committee looked into that eighty bucks so many scenarios that were out there but when when tom and i followed this up starting in the early ninety's and then i kept on at it with tom support after that we just simply followed up the leads of stokes in his committee and we found that it was for georgia whites premises basically used a mafia godfather the most powerful one of the south one most powerful in the country. name of carlos marcello these four georgia whites premises to use marcel of to procure the hiring of

a hitman to kill came james earl ray was prison escapee no low level drug runner for that organization and you know he was he was in all likelihood the man and i say in all likelihood because we can't prove that beyond a shadow of a doubt but he definitely had help in the whole operation and there were there are others possibly involved as we explain in legacy of secrecy including some he could actually be convicted the day the last person i know that definitely could have been convicted only died in january of two thousand and six in my zip code here in georgia and it's just a shame that that man was not prosecuted and sent to prison for this crime and like i say some of his accomplices could still conceivably be prosecuted you say that it was concluded that james earl ray did this for money where he said he was all this money coming from the i mean was this coming from the mafia was it coming from powerful corporate interests was a company of average people contribute i mean where was it coming from exactly

a couple of those it was coming from the white supremacists who were giving the money from the average working people in atlanta who were upset over desegregation they targeted one of the largest factories in atlanta. seven thousand workers and had been targeted for blockbusting which was the old technique where the big real estate agencies and tell what targeted area to move in black families pretty quickly scare the local white population that selling their homes very quickly and they would make millions of dollars well atlanta's largest factory at the time one of them was in the lakewood part of atlanta which is gone from you know being a hotbed of support for j.f.k. but after a lot of propaganda an effort by the klan and others it had been turned into a hotbed of a racist activity among some of its members by no means all. and so they would collect money every week every week from these highly paid union factory workers and only about twenty percent of them contribute like say most of these factory

workers create people not races but twenty percent of them were pretty racist and some of those would contribute money every week to assassinate dr king left for several years the people collecting the money these races enjoyed it collected you know millions of dollars that they had used it for their own purposes they bought land and but the workers were getting angry that nobody even take a shot at king recently so they basically had to hire someone a hit man to at least take a shot at king that they could claim credit for and preferably kill him because they were all hardcore racists and that's exactly what they did they tried to recruit on their old and a couple of researchers i should point out. stuart wexler larry hancock a recent book that follows up mine in tom's book it's called the awful grace of god about religious terrorism and they've documented that there was a contract out in the prisons to try and recruit you know a white supremacist to kill king for this group for quite a long time and you know there are racist groups in the south were involved

couldn't do it so eventually of a joseph mill tier one of the racists from south georgia who was part of that group people come up to atlanta and collect money at the factory every week. he actually had contacts with marcello going back to nine hundred sixty three and that's how it was arranged that marcello only brokered the contract take the contract he got his money clean record called maher we've got ten seconds left just wrap it up here so that's basically how king was killed what's important today is there's a lot of work the f.b.i. could do today to do actually solving officially close this crime and we simply need to get them to come clean and to do that need to put pressure on the new f.b.i. director and whoever's coming in to lead up the f.b.i. to do this tomorrow you know really work on this topic thank you so much thank you so much for the opportunity i appreciate it. thank.

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