Following the 1958 merger of the American Federation of Organized Labor (AFL) with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), the AFL-CIO became a strong ally of civil rights organizations. Martin Luther King, Jr. often spoke of the shared goals of the civil rights and labor movements; and in his 1961 address to the AFL-CIO national convention, King noted that both African Americans and union members were fighting for “decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures, conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community.”
The American Federation of Labor was founded in 1886 to help autonomous crafts unions organize workers for their common economic interests. Using strikes, work slow-downs, and other methods, these unions were able to improve the working conditions of their members. The labor movement gained further momentum during the New Deal with passage of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), legislation that protects the right of workers to join unions and engage in collective bargaining.
In 1937, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters became the first black union to negotiate a labor contract with a white corporation, the Pullman Company. Under the leadership of A. Philip Randolph, the union gained concessions for the porters and maids who worked on sleeping-car trains. Following that victory, the Brotherhood became affiliated with the AFL; and Randolph, an outspoken critic of racial discrimination within the labor movement, became the AFL’s most prominent black leader.
The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), which organized semi-skilled works rather than skilled craftsmen, heavily recruited black membership during the 1930s and 1940s. Concerned that the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 would undermine labor gains during the New Deal, the AFL and CIO merged in 1955. The new merger agreement included a civil rights clause calling for non-discrimination in union privileges.
During the years that followed, the AFL-CIO supported the civil rights struggle by providing financial and legal assistance as well as moral support. During the Montgomery bus boycott, the union’s newly-elected president, George Meany, sent a telegram to President Eisenhower urging him to investigate the violence aimed at Martin Luther King, Jr. Although the National Council of the AFL-CIO declined to support the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, many international and local unions independently declared their support and were present in substantial numbers.
In 1968, black sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, were frustrated by economic inequalities and unjust treatment and decided to strike for better working conditions. The strike, which involved 1,300 men, lasted nearly three months. Although Martin Luther King, Jr. was occupied with the Poor People’s Campaign at the time, he traveled to Memphis on several occasions to support the protest and draw national attention the workers’ cause. It was during one of these visits when he delivered his final address "I've Been to the Mountaintop." The next day, 4 April 1968, King was assassinated.
Throughout the following decades, the AFL-CIO continued its partnership with the civil rights struggle and was instrumental in gaining support for the enactment of a national holiday to celebrate the King legacy.