Martin Luther King III: Alabama’s Immigration Law Is Like ‘Jim Crow’

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Calling it “Jim Crow Revisited,” Martin Luther King III and AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka lay out similarities between the civil rights movement that Martin Luther King, Jr. helped lead in Alabama and the draconian anti-immigrant law in the same state. “The passage of Alabama’s anti-immigrant legislation, HB 56, invokes inhumanity reminiscent of the Jim Crow South,” they write. “And the police state it has created is equally cruel.” In the op-ed, King and Trumka call on President Obama to stop immigration programs that lead to racial profiling, “including collaboration between state and local law enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security.” After a New York Times editorial compared HB 56 and the civil rights movement, Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley (R) said earlier this week that it was an “insult” to compare the law and the movement. However, it’s more likely that Martin Luther King Jr.’s son is the more authoritative source on if the two struggles are similar.



Alabama's immigration law: Jim Crow revisited
Martin Luther King III is president and chief executive officer of The King Center in Atlanta. Richard Trumka is president of the AFL-CIO.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/11/17/opinion/trumka-king-civil-rights-alabama/