On April 4, 1968, King was killed in Memphis, where he had gone to support city sanitation workers in their fight to form a union. Rodney grew up to be a sanitation driver for the City of San Diego and a member of AFSCME, the union that organized the Memphis workers.

As he turns 50 today, Fowler will join hundreds of other San Diegans at a rally and vigil to honor King’s legacy and the workers’ rights he died fighting for.

“We Are One” Candlelight Vigil

6:30 p.m. April 4, 2011

Civic Center Plaza, 1200 3rd Ave San Diego 92101

In his 23 years on the job, Rodney Fowler has collected trash in almost every corner of San Diego, the city where he and both his parents were born and raised. He gets up at 4:30 in the morning to start his routes, driving a different neighborhood each day of the week.

Although the trucks are automated now, he still gets out and talks with people who are having problems with their trash cans or need something extra hauled away.

“You get to know the people in the neighborhood – especially this time of year with spring cleaning – and if there’s an elderly person that needs help, you get out and help them.”
Fowler proudly wears a T-shirt that reads “#1 in Customer Service” on the back, an honor San Diego’s sanitation department has won repeatedly.

As a member of AFSCME, he’s been able to live the modest, middle-class American dream Dr. King advocated for all workers.  He married his high school sweetheart, bought a house in the Mount Hope area of southeastern San Diego (after seeing the for-sale sign on one of his routes), had three children and now four grandchildren.

His children all graduated college. “That’s one of my personal favorite accomplishments,” Fowler said. “Dr. King’ dream definitely lives on in me.”

The recent hostility toward public employees – in San Diego as well as Wisconsin, Ohio and other states – hasn’t dimmed Fowler’s pride in his work, but he finds it bewildering.  While some local politicians and media focus on the pensions of top city managers, Fowler is working hard to pay his bills and pay into the pension system for what he hopes will be a secure retirement.  Unlike most workers, he and other City employees won’t get Social Security.

“None of us are living extravagantly,” he said. “You pay your mortgage and a couple of bills and you gotta wait for the next check.”

The vigil in downtown San Diego is one of many actions across the nation today demonstrating solidarity with workers fighting to preserve the rights Dr. King championed: the rights to bargain collectively, to have a voice in the workplace and the chance to earn a middle-class life. Public employees are being scapegoated for the recession and budget problems from Wisconsin to San Diego.

Please join CPI, the Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice and many others at the vigil to show Rodney Fowler and other civil servants that you appreciate their hard work, and to honor Dr. King’s legacy. For more information, see ICWJ’s Facebook page or www.we-r-1.org.