Lessons from Memphis, April 4, 1968
During a heavy rainstorm in Memphis on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation workers had been crushed to death when the compactor mechanism of the trash truck was accidentally triggered. On the same day in a separate incident also related to the inclement weather, 22 black sewer workers had been sent home without pay while their white supervisors were retained for the day with pay. About two weeks later, on February 12, more than 1,100 of a possible 1,300 black sanitation workers began a strike for job safety, better wages and benefits, and union recognition. Mayor Henry Loeb, unsympathetic to most of the workers' demands, was especially opposed to the union. Black and white civic groups in Memphis tried to resolve the conflict, but the mayor held fast to his position.As the strike lengthened, support for the strikers within the black community of Memphis grew. Organizations such as COME (Community on the Move for Equality) established food and clothing banks in churches, took up collections for strikers to meet rent and mortgages, and recruited marchers for frequent demonstrations. King's participation in forming a city-wide boycott to support the striking workers was invited by the Reverend James Lawson, pastor of the Centenary Methodist Church in Memphis and an adviser to the strikers. Lawson was a seasoned veteran of the civil rights movement and an experienced trainer of activists in the philosophy and methods of nonviolent resistance.
Those are two paragraphs of Teaching With Documents:
Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers, the Background, found on the website of the National Archives, in the section for Teachers called Teaching with Documents. (since these are US Government documents, there is no issue of copyright violation). In case you did not know, King was in Memphis to help with the strike of the Sanitation workers when he was assassinated, 43 years ago this evening, which is why today is an appropriate day to show support for those government workers - municipal and state - who wish to be unionized.
Allow me to offer a bit more about King in Memphis.
