If Martin Luther King had lived, he would have been 69 years old last Thursday. Today, January 19th, is the federal holiday that commemorates his birth. Dr. Martin Luther King — he led the Montgomery bus boycott of 1956, the march on Washington in 1963, the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965; gave his historic anti-Vietnam war speech in 1967, and was killed in Memphis on April 4 1968, where he had gone to support a garbage workers’. strike.

In honor of his support of labor, Democracy Now! brings you his speech “Civil Rights at the Crossroads”, where Dr. King outlines a plan of action for the civil rights movement, drawing on the labor struggle for inspiration. This speech was given on May 2nd 1967, less than a year before his assassination.

Tape:

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Civil Rights at the Crossroads.”