TWU President Mike Quill introduces keynote speaker Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the national TWU Convention in 1961.
In 1961, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the TWU’s Constitutional Convention, “It is faith that keeps us going, and with this faith we will be able to adjourn the councils of despair and bring new light into the dark changers of pessimism, and then, on that new day, when that day comes, the fears of insecurity, the torments of frustration, and the doubts clouding our future, will be transformed into confidence, into excitement to reach new goals, and in which the brotherhood of man will be undergirded by secure and expanding prosperity available to all,” he said.
“This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to join hands, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual ‘Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’”
Sixty years later, we continue to honor King’s legacy by doing everything possible to defend the livelihoods of the women and men of the Transport Workers Union.