When faith meets labor, it fuels a fight for the common good---An article on Rev. David Wheeler by Rebecca Jacobson

We have mentioned David Wheeler on our blog before. Now The Northwest Labor Press has a great article about him.

A ‘GOOD TROUBLE’ BAPTIST: For Portland minister David Wheeler, solidarity is a virtue with a Biblical foundation. | PHOTO BY CELINA FLORES

When faith meets labor, it fuels a fight for the common good--By REBECCA JACOBSON

On a September afternoon in 2006, a couple thousand people took to the west end of Los Angeles’s Century Boulevard. Blocking rush-hour traffic on one of the city’s major thoroughfares, they marched toward the passenger terminals at Los Angeles International Airport. Many carried signs or wore t-shirts reading “I Am a Human” in English and Spanish, a reference to the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis.

The marchers were there to support low-wage workers at the many nearby hotels, and to put pressure on hotel management to respect their employees’ rights to organize. Outside the Hilton, more than 300 of the demonstrators sat down in the middle of the boulevard. When police showed up with plastic handcuffs, they offered no resistance to arrest. It was one of the largest acts of civil disobedience in LA history.

Reverend Dr. David Wheeler, then pastor of the First Baptist Church in Los Angeles, was there. But he wasn’t among those cuffed.

Read the entire article here.