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A 24-year-old church volunteer who works with Wichita's homeless hoped that the local "We Are One" rally would turn into a call for support.
"I liked the idea of doing something that showed we stood for something, instead of people thinking we stand against things," Kate Davis said Monday night.
What they supported included fair working conditions, middle-class wages and health care reform, as more than 60 people gathered at Inter-Faith Ministries on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
It was one of more than 1,000 such events across the United States.
"We wanted this to be nonpartisan," Davis said. "We invited the Republican Party to send a speaker, but no one came."
The nationwide rallies hoped to build on the protests to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's actions to curb the rights of public employee unions.
Kevin Myles, president of the Kansas NAACP, said the civil rights movement of King was tied to the labor movement of the first half of the 20th century.
"If you look back at the history of those two movements, they are inseparable, and Dr. King knew that," Myles said. "And we need to remember that."
Myles said the civil rights movement grew out of A. Philip Randolph's fight for labor conditions for elevator workers and Pullman porters.
"Dr. King joined the civil rights movement — he didn't start it," Myles said.
Pat Lehman, a longtime labor leader and retired Machinist, said she got her job because of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
"I am a part that benefited more than any other group — the white woman," she said.
The hope of the rally was to unite groups that had become fragmented since the midterm elections, when Republicans took control of Congress.
"We may have different issues and fight different battles, but we have one cause ... to be sure we build the kind of future we all want for our children," said Jake Lowen, political director of the Wichita-Hutchinson Labor Federation.
The rally seemed aimed at finding a common voice for progressive politics in a way similar to how the Tea Party has organized support for social conservatives.
"They call me a femi-Nazi. They call my labor friends thugs," said Kari Ann Rinker, state coordinator for the Kansas National Organization for Women. "Well, I call them my friends, and I call them patriots. We must continue to stand up to people who think they can win through intimidation and bullying, through harassment and the misuse of their political power."
