[[link removed]]

PORTSIDE CULTURE

WHY MLK IS RELEVANT TO TODAY'S FOOD INDUSTRY  
[[link removed]]


 

Errol Schweizer
January 19, 2026
The Bittman Project
[[link removed]]

*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

_ MLK’s economic philosophy is relevant today, where up to 75% of
grocery employees are food insecure, where seven of the ten lowest
paying jobs are in the food industry, where farmworkers are mostly
excluded from basic labor protections. _

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of
comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
-MLK, grocerynerd

 

“ALL LABOR HAS DIGNITY” — MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. AND THE
GROCERY INDUSTRY.

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should
be undertaken with painstaking excellence.”-MLK

 

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr (MLK) represents how to live a
life of tolerance, compassion, commitment and most of all, solidarity.
His most famous speech, the “I Have A Dream” address, was given at
the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and so eloquently
demanded voting rights and an end to segregation, but also fair wages,
good jobs and better standards of living, prioritizing economic
liberties as well as civil rights. 

While MLK is canonized for his civil rights leadership and non-violent
philosophy, incorrectly held up as a counterpoint to his rival and
ally Malcolm X’s militant Black nationalism, MLK was also deeply
critical of the economic injustice, inequality and exploitation of his
era, crises that are still so prevalent today. This latter part of
MLK’s philosophy tends to get whitewashed and sanitized.

MLK WAS NOT A PUSHOVER, A PASSIVE ACCOMMODATIONIST WHO COMPROMISED
WITH THE POWERS THAT WERE. HE WAS A TOTAL BADASS AND WE SHOULD
RECONSIDER HIS LEGACY FOR THE GROCERY INDUSTRY.

_“NO WORK IS INSIGNIFICANT. ALL LABOR THAT UPLIFTS HUMANITY HAS
DIGNITY AND IMPORTANCE AND SHOULD BE UNDERTAKEN WITH PAINSTAKING
EXCELLENCE.”_-MLK

MLK’s civil rights activism grew out of the Christian church’s
philosophy of solidarity and social justice and his embrace of
Gandhian strategic nonviolence. He was deeply rooted and trained in
the labor and community activism of his predecessors, such as Ralph
Abernathy and A. Phillip Randolph. He was also an ally of
progressive Rabbi Abraham Heschel
[[link removed]], uniting
Blacks and Jews in common cause against prejudice and white supremacy,
recognizing Jewish trauma while also supporting Palestinian
statehood. _HE WAS A DISRUPTOR OF THE STATUS QUO AND A RABBLE ROUSER.
IT MADE HIM VERY UNPOPULAR AT THE TIME._

“IT IS A CRUEL JEST TO SAY TO A BOOTLESS MAN THAT HE SHOULD LIFT
HIMSELF UP BY HIS OWN BOOTSTRAPS. IT IS EVEN WORSE TO TELL A MAN TO
LIFT HIMSELF UP BY HIS OWN BOOTSTRAPS WHEN SOMEBODY IS STANDING ON THE
BOOT.”-MLK

MLK recognized that the “bootstraps” nonsense was based in satire
and sarcasm, not material reality. He had an 80% disapproval rating
with our grandparent’s generation. He was despised by the media, big
business, cultural tastemakers, southern segregationists and, or
course, the federal government, including FBI director J. Edgar
Hoover, who surveilled, threatened and terrorized MLK, his family and
his close associates.

When MLK was assassinated in 1968, he was on the ground supporting
sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, after a three year sojourn
organizing in the deeply segregated Chicago suburbs, where he
experience racism and violence beyond anything he saw in the Deep
South. And yet, despite all of mainstream society bearing down on him
and his quest for economic justice, there was MLK in Memphis, still
marching and organizing with essential workers until the very end,
when his life was cut short by an assassin’s bullet.

“ALL MANKIND IS TIED TOGETHER; ALL LIFE IS INTERRELATED, AND WE ARE
ALL CAUGHT IN AN INESCAPABLE NETWORK OF MUTUALITY, TIED IN A SINGLE
GARMENT OF DESTINY. WHATEVER AFFECTS ONE DIRECTLY, AFFECTS ALL
INDIRECTLY.” -MLK

MLK saw that economic justice
[[link removed]] and
mutuality were key to the changes he had preached, marched for and
written about. He was critical of consumer society and big business
[[link removed]].
He foresaw how deindustrialization and offshoring would shatter his
vision of the promised land, how the quest for freedom would get
kneecapped by losses of well-paying jobs. Against the advice of close
associates, he questioned and challenged the war machine and why
society was spending money on space exploration while millions
languished in poverty. MLK had an unflinching analysis of capitalism,
but also how essential workers could organize within the framework of
American democracy to WIN BETTER LIVELIHOODS FOR THEMSELVES, THEIR
COMMUNITIES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS.

 

_WHY DOES THIS MATTER NOW? _MLK’s economic philosophy is even more
relevant today, especially where up to 75% of grocery employees
[[link removed]] have
been food insecure and over 10% have been homeless in recent
years, where seven of the ten lowest paying jobs are in the food
industry,
[[link removed]] where
farmworkers are still mostly excluded from basic labor
protections, where Amazon employs 36% of warehouse personnel
[[link removed]] but
accounts for over 53% of warehouse injuries, where multiple studies
document how Walmart drives down wages and living standards
[[link removed]] in
heartland communities, where migrant and undocumented workers perform
some of the most daunting, dangerous jobs in meat processing and food
manufacturing, under threats of deportation and harassment by law
enforcement
[[link removed]],
enduring sexual violence and worse.

So while there are opportunities in the grocery industry for some of
us to make a good living, start a business, move up the corporate
ladder and graduate into the middle class, that is not the case for
many, many people who we depend on for our livelihoods, who make sure
these supply chains keep running no matter what, the folks working in
the fields during hurricanes and wildfires, the truck drivers waiting
ten deep at 3 AM to drop their loads at fulfillment centers, the
migrant kids scrubbing grease off packing machinery after the shift
workers go home, the women cooking meals and taking care of the kids
after 14 hours of bent, stooped work in the fields picking berries,
celery, tomatoes, the grandparents working as cashiers and people
greeters instead of enjoying a well-earned retirement, the food
processing workers who were laid off after years of corporate
profiteering
[[link removed]] drove
up prices, cratered consumption volumes and shuttered processing
facilities, the retail clerks and cashiers working second and third
jobs as their hours get cut while their hourly wages fall further and
further behind spiraling costs of living, the 99% of wage earners
[[link removed]] who have
lost $80 trillion in income since 1975 as the gains of productivity
were shared by an elite few that now account for over 50% of consumer
spending
[[link removed]-],
the economy gone K-shaped.

“OH AMERICA, HOW OFTEN HAVE YOU TAKEN NECESSITIES FROM THE MASSES TO
GIVE LUXURIES TO THE CLASSES.”-MLK.

THIS PURSUIT OF JUSTICE
[[link removed]] IS THE
LEGACY OF MLK. IT IS CARRIED ON TODAY by Amazon workers demanding
safer jobs and better pay, by Florida farmworkers holding growers
accountable through legal binding purchase agreements with grocers, by
Whole Foods clerks in Philadelphia demanding that the company return
to its roots of providing best in class wages and benefits, by the
food processing workers at Kellogg’s, Mondelez and Frito Lay who
walked off their jobs during Covid-19 to demand better pay,
commensurate with their skills and productivity, by the beef and
poultry processing workers pushing for safer line speeds and better
staffing levels, by the immigrant dairy workers risking deportation
while marching for fair wages, better housing and decent medical care,
by high road business owners and purchasing managers making sure their
brands, stores and facilities sell the highest quality, most ethically
sourced products that take into account worker treatment, agrochemical
usage and fair wages. _MLK’S ECONOMIC IDEAS ARE MORE RELEVANT THAN
EVER, ESPECIALLY TO THE GROCERY INDUSTRY._

“THE FACT IS THAT FREEDOM IS NEVER VOLUNTARILY GIVEN BY THE
OPPRESSOR. IT MUST BE DEMANDED BY THE OPPRESSED — THAT’S THE LONG,
SOMETIMES TRAGIC AND TURBULENT STORY OF HISTORY.”-MLK.

MLK’s ideas are not stagnant, ancient history, not museum set pieces
or folk tales. They are living, fire-breathing ideals that can
inspire, energize and emancipate, just as MLK was inspired, energized
and emancipated by the gospel or his friend Rabbi Heschel by the
Talmud and Pirke Avot. They are a road map to justice, to a better
food industry, to a better humanity, not only on MLK Day, but every
day, and only if we take the steps now, to build that road as we
travel forward.

“OUR LIVES BEGIN TO END THE DAY WE BECOME SILENT ABOUT THINGS THAT
MATTER”- MLK.

_This story comes to us from ERROL SCHWEIZER’s newsletter _The
Checkout
[[link removed]]_,
the essential take on the $1 trillion U.S. grocery industry. We
encourage you to, if you will, check it out._

_The Bittman Project_

*
[[link removed]]
*
*
[[link removed]]

 

 

 

INTERPRET THE WORLD AND CHANGE IT

 

 

Submit via web
[[link removed]]

Submit via email
Frequently asked questions
[[link removed]]
Manage subscription
[[link removed]]
Visit portside.org
[[link removed]]

Bluesky [[link removed]]

Facebook [[link removed]]

 



########################################################################

[link removed]

To unsubscribe from the xxxxxx list, click the following link:
[link removed]