Next up in our series that will take a deeper look at each of our affiliates is the School Administrators (AFSA). The series will run weekly until we've covered all 55 of our affiliates.

For Black History Month, the AFL-CIO is spotlighting various African American leaders and activists who have worked at the intersection of civil and labor rights. Our next profile is William Burrus.

Workplace violence is a serious and growing problem for working people in the United States: It causes more than 450 homicides and 28,000 serious injuries each year. Workplace homicide now is responsible for more workplace deaths than equipment, fires and explosions. Two of every three workplace violence injuries are suffered by women.

Whenever I face adversity—when my faith is shaken or my confidence falters—I turn to a woman I carry in my heart every day. Too often forgotten in Dr. King’s shadow, Coretta Scott King embodied everything at the core of an intersectional fight for justice. Above all, she recognized that the movement for civil rights could not stop at the voting booth. It had to be a fight for dignity in every facet of our lives—the right to stand tall at work and to live with security at home.

Today’s progressive, pro-worker victories in the halls of Trenton were born more than 20 years ago at the New Jersey State AFL-CIO headquarters on State Street, only a couple hundred or so yards from the capitol building. The passage of a $15 minimum wage, a landmark paid family leave program and other legislation to lift up New Jersey’s working families are the culmination of an idea we had in 1997. Tired of politicians who took our money and turned their backs, we asked this simple question: Instead of hoping for our leaders to do right by union members, what if we elected union members themselves?