From the May-June 2015 issue of News & Letters

In Chicago, Ill., thousands of home care, childcare, nursing home, and university workers and students marched for a living wage, starting at the University of Illinois and stopping traffic for hours. They were part of a nationwide protest for a living wage. (Photo by Amy Livingston for News & Letters)

Los Angeles—On April 4, protesters of all races marched downtown on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s 1968 assassination. They included low-wage workers campaigning to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, uniting with the movement against police killing of unarmed Black and Brown youth. It included community, religious and immigrant rights groups. Organizations in the march included SEIU security guards, Clean Carwash workers, Central American Resource Center and LACAN.

We marched from Broadway and Olympic to the Union Rescue Mission on Skid Row protesting the LA Police Department’s Safe Cities Initiative program that criminalizes the homeless and resulted in the killing of a Black homeless man known as Africa. We then marched to LAPD headquarters where speakers expanded on King’s words: “An injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

—Basho