Atlanta

On a recent Friday, Kwanza Brooks, a US$7.25-an-hour McDonald's worker, climbed into a 14-person van to take a four-hour ride from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Atlanta.

As she and other workers headed south, Ms Brooks swapped stories with her companions about unsafe conditions and unfair managers. Upon arriving, they joined more than 400 other people - including home care aides, Wal-Mart workers, child care workers and adjunct professors - at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev Dr Martin Luther King Jr had been a pastor.