Speaker 1: Welcome to steph you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We are
Speaker 1: coming up on the fiftieth anniversary of the Memphis Sanitation
Speaker 1: Workers Strike. After voting the strike on February eleventh night,
Speaker 1: Memphis sanitation workers stayed off the job starting on the
Speaker 1: twelfth and a strike that lasted for nine weeks. This
Speaker 1: is a strike that brought Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
Speaker 1: To Memphis, Tennessee, where he was assassinated on April four
Speaker 1: of that year. And for a lot of folks, that
Speaker 1: is really what they know about the strike. They know
Speaker 1: it's the reason that Dr King was in Memphis that day,
Speaker 1: but his assassination also really overshadowed the strike itself, which
Speaker 1: had been going on for a month before he arrived
Speaker 1: on the scene. So today we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the strike which started out as an effort to secure
Speaker 1: better pay and conditions for sanitation kers in Memphis, but
Speaker 1: really came to be considered part of the greater civil
Speaker 1: rights movement and the movement for economic justice. Memphis sits
Speaker 1: along the Mississippi River in West Tennessee, and today its
Speaker 1: population is majority black, but in the nineteen sixties his
Speaker 1: population was about forty black, and about sixty of those
Speaker 1: black residents were living in poverty. More than eighty percent
Speaker 1: of black men living in Memphis were employed doing menial
Speaker 1: labor for very low pay. Many had moved to the
Speaker 1: city from nearby rural areas, leaving behind sharecropping cotton in
Speaker 1: the hope of a better life. When Memphis City schools
Speaker 1: desegregated in nineteen sixty one, things progressed without the level
Speaker 1: of violence that struck so many other parts of the South,
Speaker 1: staring school desegregation. By the late sixties, the city government
Speaker 1: included some elected and appointed black officials as well, but
Speaker 1: at the same time, Memphis really still had something of
Speaker 1: a plantation mentality. This mentality was particularly obvious in the
Speaker 1: city's Department of Public Works, especially when it came to sanitation.
Speaker 1: The workforce for waste collection was overwhelmingly black, with the
Speaker 1: only white employees working as supervisors or drivers. In bad weather,
Speaker 1: employees who worked outside who were predominantly black would be
Speaker 1: sent home without pay, while their supervisors, who were white
Speaker 1: were allowed to stay on the job. Even though there
Speaker 1: really wasn't much for them to do. Most of the
Speaker 1: garbage collectors made minimum wage, which was a dollar and
Speaker 1: sixty cents an hour for forty hours of work a week.
Speaker 1: There was no overtime pay, but you were expected to
Speaker 1: work for as long as it took you to finish
Speaker 1: your collection route, no matter how long that took. So
Speaker 1: a lot of the men were working more like sixty
Speaker 1: hours a week for forty hours of pay. This was
Speaker 1: just not enough money to make ends meet. About of
Speaker 1: memphisis sanitation workers qualified for welfare assistance, hundreds were on
Speaker 1: food stamps, and some had second jobs. But there was
Speaker 1: a perception in Memphis that sanitation workers had a benefit
Speaker 1: that made up for this. They got so called handouts
Speaker 1: from households when they collected garbage. This was generally cast
Speaker 1: off clothing given to the workers rather than just throwing
Speaker 1: it away. Aside from the pay, sanitation workers had a dehumanizing, filthy,
Speaker 1: and physically demanding job and most parts of town trash
Speaker 1: wasn't brought out to the curb on collection day, and
Speaker 1: workers had to go behind every house to retrieve a
Speaker 1: fifty five gallon metal garbage can or a tub and
Speaker 1: then haul it back to the truck. For the smaller tubs,
Speaker 1: you could ease some of the strain on your arms
Speaker 1: and your back by carrying it on your head or
Speaker 1: on your shoulder. But this was before the days of
Speaker 1: using plastic liners and trash cans, so the cans leaked
Speaker 1: everything from filthy water to maggots on the people who
Speaker 1: were carrying them. Sanitation workers had nowhere to shower or
Speaker 1: change clothes on the job, so they had to go
Speaker 1: home at the end of the day in this same
Speaker 1: filthy clothes and take off as much as they could
Speaker 1: before they got into the house. They had no clean
Speaker 1: place to eat lunch, no paid time off, no grievance process,
Speaker 1: and no workers comp if they were injured on the job.
Speaker 1: In fact, if you were injured on the job, you
Speaker 1: ran the risk of being fired for it. In addition,
Speaker 1: I'm not having a clean place to eat lunch. They
Speaker 1: didn't have anywhere to wash their hands before eating lunch. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there are like oral histories and and other interviews
Speaker 1: where they talked about like we would find a scrap
Speaker 1: of soap that had been thrown away, and like try
Speaker 1: to use that to wash our hands before we ate
Speaker 1: collecting garbage is still i would say, not a pleasant job. No,
Speaker 1: but it was worse in the sixties. In Memphis in
Speaker 1: the sixties, a former sanitation worker named t O. Jones
Speaker 1: had started trying to organize a union. Jones had been
Speaker 1: a sanitation worker himself from ninety eight to nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: and he had led a spontaneous walk out of thirty
Speaker 1: two other workers that year. All of those work, including Jones,
Speaker 1: were fired. Most of them eventually got their jobs back,
Speaker 1: but rather than returning to work for the city, Jones
Speaker 1: turned his attention to labor activism. In August of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, after months of work, the American Federation of State,
Speaker 1: County and Municipal Employees or Asked Me, granted the sanitation
Speaker 1: workers a charter as Local seventeen thirty three. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if this is actually intentional, but a lot of
Speaker 1: the like the local lore about it is that thirty
Speaker 1: three at the end of the number is in reference
Speaker 1: to those thirty three workers who had walked out and
Speaker 1: been fired in uh in nineteen sixty three. The city, however,
Speaker 1: did not recognize this union or allow it to negotiate
Speaker 1: on behalf of the workers. The city also refused to
Speaker 1: deduct union dues from members paychecks, which is known as
Speaker 1: dues check off. Dues check off can be a contentious
Speaker 1: issue in the world of labor relations, but it allows
Speaker 1: the union to collect dues efficiently without workers having to
Speaker 1: keep up with or make in visual payments to the union,
Speaker 1: and in this case, it's something that the union members
Speaker 1: specifically wanted. In nineteen sixty six, the sanitation workers tried
Speaker 1: to go on strike for better working conditions, but the
Speaker 1: city petitioned the court for an injunction to stop to strike.
Speaker 1: The resulting court order forbade any future strikes or demonstrations
Speaker 1: by municipal employees. A lot of the workers were also
Speaker 1: really reluctant to make waves even if they had joined
Speaker 1: the union. That mass firing in nineteen sixty three made
Speaker 1: it clear that their jobs would be at risk. Then,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight, two events shifted things for Memphis
Speaker 1: sanitation workers. The first was that Henry Loebe was sworn
Speaker 1: in his mayor after being elected in a runoff in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven. Loebe had served as mayor from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty to nineteen sixty four as well, and both times
Speaker 1: he had run on a campaign of so called white unity.
Speaker 1: He was a conservative, anti union segregationist, and in the
Speaker 1: runoff election he had to feated incumbent William B. Ingram.
Speaker 1: Ingram's record on race wasn't all that progressive, but he
Speaker 1: had spoken to black church congregations, and he had a
Speaker 1: reputation for treating black defendants fairly in his work as
Speaker 1: a judge. And the election that led to that runoff,
Speaker 1: Artie Walker Willis, known as a w had also been defeated.
Speaker 1: Willis was a black civil rights activist, a lawyer, and
Speaker 1: a businessman who had helped desegregate Memphis public schools. So,
Speaker 1: with the defeats of both Willis and Ingram and the
Speaker 1: election of Henry Loebe, the nineteen sixties seven mayoral election
Speaker 1: felt like a huge step backward for the black community
Speaker 1: in Memphis. The second event was the tragic and horrifying
Speaker 1: deaths of two sanitation workers on February one. Ecle Cole
Speaker 1: and Robert Walker had taken shelter in the back of
Speaker 1: their garbage truck to try to get out of a
Speaker 1: heavy rain. A short circuit caused the truck's compactor to
Speaker 1: start without warning, and they weren't able to escape. These
Speaker 1: trucks were well past the end of their life expect
Speaker 1: to see, and the workers had been raising concerns about
Speaker 1: their safety for months before this tragic event happened. Cole
Speaker 1: and Walker were both in their thirties. They both had
Speaker 1: families and children, and the city gave each family five
Speaker 1: hundred dollars to cover funeral expenses along with a month's
Speaker 1: pay for Cole and Walker. They got no other compensation,
Speaker 1: no other insurance pay out, and no one from the
Speaker 1: city attended either man's funeral. The city also did nothing
Speaker 1: to address whether the same malfunction could happen again in
Speaker 1: all these trucks that were still on the road. After
Speaker 1: the two men's deaths, union leaders stepped up their efforts
Speaker 1: to get the city to officially recognize the union and
Speaker 1: to allow the union to negotiate a contract for the
Speaker 1: sanitation workers. Mayor Loebes steadfastly refused. This refusal is what
Speaker 1: ultimately led the men to strike, which we are going
Speaker 1: to get to after a quick sponsor break. On February eleventh, nineteen,
Speaker 1: after talks with the city failed to reach any kind
Speaker 1: of resolution, the Memphis Sanitation Workers Union voted to go
Speaker 1: on strike. Ed Gillis, who was one of the workers,
Speaker 1: became their main liaison with t O. Jones, and Jones
Speaker 1: became the workers representative with the city. Going on strike
Speaker 1: was a risky decision. On top of the inherent risk
Speaker 1: in walking off the job and the loss of income
Speaker 1: that comes with it, Striking workers often face harassment, intimidation, threats,
Speaker 1: and even violence. Then there was also the injunction prohibiting
Speaker 1: municipal employees from going on strike. The workers also voted
Speaker 1: to strike without discussing it with National ASTHMY leadership. They
Speaker 1: knew that the national organization wasn't really likely to support
Speaker 1: this decision. In general, garbage strikes are a lot more
Speaker 1: effective in the summer because it's hot and the garbage
Speaker 1: is a lot stickier, and the public gets a lot
Speaker 1: more on board with getting things resolved quickly. The National
Speaker 1: organization also didn't have a fund that could support the strike.
Speaker 1: Knew that the city already had a strong anti union sentiment,
Speaker 1: and it was a union of black workers and a
Speaker 1: majority white Southern city with a segregationist mayor. So at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the strike, the Memphis sanitation workers were
Speaker 1: essentially on their own regardless. On Monday, February twelve, most
Speaker 1: of the city's hundred sanitation workers did not go to work.
Speaker 1: According to reports, two hundred or so state on the job,
Speaker 1: but fewer than forty of the city's fleet of one
Speaker 1: eight garbage trucks rolled out that day. From the very beginning,
Speaker 1: Mayor Loeb maintained that the strike was illegal and that
Speaker 1: he would not negotiate with the men in any way
Speaker 1: unless they returned to work. The strike progressed, along with
Speaker 1: meetings and protests to try to draw attention to the
Speaker 1: workers demands. Uncollected garbage started to pile up around the city.
Speaker 1: Some residents hauled their own garbage to the dump, while
Speaker 1: organizations like the j c S raged bulk pickups. By
Speaker 1: February fourteenth, the few garbage trucks that were still on
Speaker 1: the road were traveling with police escorts. The Memphis branch
Speaker 1: of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
Speaker 1: that is, the a CP, endorsed the strike on the
Speaker 1: sixteenth of February. On the eighteenth, asked ME national president
Speaker 1: Jerry Whorf arrived in Memphis to help with the negotiations,
Speaker 1: having been convinced that the strike should go ahead. There
Speaker 1: wasn't much progress between the city and the union, though.
Speaker 1: On the eighteenth, Rabbi James Wax tried to mediate one
Speaker 1: of the many meetings that would take place over the
Speaker 1: course of the strike. Talks went on until five am
Speaker 1: with nothing resolved. After a sit in at City Hall,
Speaker 1: a city council subcommittee voted to recognize the Sanitation Workers union.
Speaker 1: This took place on February twenty two, and the committee
Speaker 1: recommended an increase in the workers pay as well. They
Speaker 1: passed all these recommendations up to the mayor, who again
Speaker 1: stated that he would not negotiate with the union. On
Speaker 1: the twenty three the full city Council was scheduled to
Speaker 1: vote on the sub committee resolution. The striking workers arranged
Speaker 1: a nonviolent march to City Hall to coincide with this vote,
Speaker 1: but in the end, the city Council voted to support
Speaker 1: the mayor rather than supporting the striking workers. The crowd
Speaker 1: of about people was of course disappointed and angry at
Speaker 1: this decision. They started their return march from City Hall
Speaker 1: back to Mason Temple, Church of God in Christ, but
Speaker 1: as they were marching, police started nudging their cruisers into
Speaker 1: the marchers. Until one eventually rolled over a woman's foot.
Speaker 1: People nearby responded by pushing and rocking the police car.
Speaker 1: Then police broke up the march with indiscriminate use of
Speaker 1: mace in what came to be known as the Mazing
Speaker 1: of Main Street. Seven protesters were arrested and jailed the
Speaker 1: next day. In response to this, about a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty local clergy formed the Community on the Move for
Speaker 1: Equality or COME to act as allies to the striking
Speaker 1: sanitation workers. They plan to use non violence of disobedience
Speaker 1: to put more pressure on the city and to raise
Speaker 1: more awareness of these issues. The Reverend James T. Lawson,
Speaker 1: activist and pastor at Sentinary Methodist Church in Memphis, led
Speaker 1: this new organization. Before moving to Memphis, Lawson had a
Speaker 1: long history with the civil rights movement, including helping to
Speaker 1: coordinate the Freedom Rides in nineteen sixty one. He's one
Speaker 1: of the civil rights leaders still alive as of when
Speaker 1: we are recording this podcast. Over the course of the strike,
Speaker 1: Come printed its own newspaper called The Appeal, to keep
Speaker 1: the community informed about what was happening and offer guidance
Speaker 1: about how to stay involved and to rally the greater
Speaker 1: community around the cause of the striking workers. This included
Speaker 1: daily marches and protests with the intent of filling Memphisis
Speaker 1: jails with non violent demonstrators. Another of the organization strategies
Speaker 1: was a boycott of all downtown Memphis businesses, especially the
Speaker 1: ones that had connections to the mayor and his family.
Speaker 1: A lot of this episode today is really focused on men,
Speaker 1: because the striking workers and many of the city and
Speaker 1: civil rights leaders involved were men. But here's where we
Speaker 1: should note that women were an active part of this
Speaker 1: strike as well. Overwhelmingly, women were the ones maintaining this
Speaker 1: boycott of downtown businesses. The mayor and his family had
Speaker 1: a lot of businesses downtown, so this was affecting the
Speaker 1: mayor directly. Women were also active in the church community
Speaker 1: and civil rights organizations that were arranging demonstrations and aid
Speaker 1: for the striking workers. Women prepared food, they laundered and
Speaker 1: donated clothing, and they participated in the marches, sit ins,
Speaker 1: and other demonstrations themselves as well. This strike really could
Speaker 1: not have continued without the involvement of women. Even with
Speaker 1: Memphisis religious community increasingly supporting the strike, the stalemate between
Speaker 1: the union and the city continued Local seventeen thirty three
Speaker 1: drafted and distributed an apology letter to the city. It began,
Speaker 1: to our fellow citizens, we apologize for the inconvenience created
Speaker 1: by the mayor of your city. He has refused to
Speaker 1: recognize the basic human needs of the workers who provide
Speaker 1: vital services to you and your family. Every Man should
Speaker 1: receive a decent wage for his labor. Every Man should
Speaker 1: have the right to have his grievances resolved in an
Speaker 1: orderly fashion without fear of reprisal. Every man who performs
Speaker 1: his work should have security on his job. Every man
Speaker 1: should have adequate insurance to meet the needs of unexpected
Speaker 1: illness or death. And the letter went on from there
Speaker 1: and it concluded that these were not issues of race relations,
Speaker 1: that it was about economic justice and dignity for all
Speaker 1: of those who work for a living. On February twenty nine,
Speaker 1: the mayor published a letter of his own in the
Speaker 1: Memphis Press Scimitar, in which he maintained again that the
Speaker 1: strike was illegal and that no negotiation would happen until
Speaker 1: everyone returned to work. Only after everyone went back to
Speaker 1: work would he meet with representatives of the Public Works Department,
Speaker 1: And in his words quote make our meaning full grievance
Speaker 1: procedure even more meaningful. The letter said that the mayor
Speaker 1: would recommend an eight cent raised, but it also made
Speaker 1: it clear that he would not approve dudes check off.
Speaker 1: The mayor also sent letters to every striking worker, and
Speaker 1: each letter invited that man back to work that day
Speaker 1: without union recognition and without any other concessions. The union
Speaker 1: filed a suit against the city in federal court, but
Speaker 1: the court rejected that suit on March one. The same day,
Speaker 1: the mayor's home was vandalized and he blamed the striking workers.
Speaker 1: By this point, the Memphis strike had started to gain
Speaker 1: more attention among national civil rights leaders. Reverend Lawson and
Speaker 1: was a friend and colleague of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Speaker 1: And he had been in touch with him about the strike,
Speaker 1: and on March five, the announcement came that King was
Speaker 1: coming to Memphis. We're gonna talk more about this part
Speaker 1: of the story. After we first paused for a little
Speaker 1: sponsor break. In March of nineteen sixty eight, tensions in
Speaker 1: Memphis were escalating. Ten union leaders had been jailed for
Speaker 1: contempt of court. On the sixth, demonstrators held a mock
Speaker 1: funeral at City Hall to symbolically mourn the depth of
Speaker 1: freedom in Memphis. Trash fires had broken out in South
Speaker 1: Memphis on the eight and the National Guard had started
Speaker 1: holding drills at the Mayor's suggestion a day later. By
Speaker 1: mid March, national civil rights leaders had arrived on the scene,
Speaker 1: including n double a CP executive secretary Roy Wilkins and
Speaker 1: Bayard Rustin, who is the subject of a two part
Speaker 1: podcast in our archive. Ralph David Abernathy and James Bevel
Speaker 1: of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference came to Memphis to
Speaker 1: work with the strike as well. On March fourteenth, Roy
Speaker 1: Wilkins met with a crowd of about ten thousand people
Speaker 1: and encouraged them to approach the strike as a non
Speaker 1: violent protest, and on the fifteenth he held a news
Speaker 1: conference expressing the national civil rights movements support of this strike.
Speaker 1: At this point, Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Was working
Speaker 1: on the Poor People's Campaign. This is a planned series
Speaker 1: of protests for economic justice, jobs, education, and housing which
Speaker 1: were to culminate in a takeover and mass occupation of
Speaker 1: the National Mall in Washington, d C. During this occupation,
Speaker 1: people would live on the mall in a shantytown to
Speaker 1: emphasize the disparities and wealth between rich and poor people
Speaker 1: in the United States. King had begun to conceive of
Speaker 1: the Poor People's Campaign after visiting some of the poorest
Speaker 1: parts of the South, after which he refocused his own
Speaker 1: advocacy to include economic inequality in addition to racial inequality.
Speaker 1: And even though the Poor People's Campaign was ultimately focused
Speaker 1: on Washington, King saw how compatible the Memphis strike was
Speaker 1: with it, so he decided to basically make the Memphis
Speaker 1: strike part of the Poor People's Campaign. He arrived in
Speaker 1: Memphis on March eighteenth, more than a month into the strike,
Speaker 1: which is really when the strike started to become national news.
Speaker 1: On the eighteenth, he addressed a huge crowd at Mason Temple.
Speaker 1: Estimates of the total attendance very I saw it and
Speaker 1: marked as anywhere from fifteen thousand to twenty five thousand people,
Speaker 1: regardless though it is believed to be the largest indoor
Speaker 1: gathering of the civil rights movement. The address King delivered
Speaker 1: that day laid out why he saw them at the
Speaker 1: strike is so compatible with the Poor People's Campaign, and
Speaker 1: in it he asked what good it did to sit
Speaker 1: in an integrated lunch counter if you could not afford
Speaker 1: to eat there. He went on to address the workers themselves, quote,
Speaker 1: you are demanding that the city will respect the dignity
Speaker 1: of labor. So often we overlook the worth and the
Speaker 1: significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of
Speaker 1: those not in the so called big jobs. But let
Speaker 1: me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged
Speaker 1: in work that serves humanity and is for the building
Speaker 1: of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth. One
Speaker 1: day our society he must come to see this. One
Speaker 1: day our society will come to respect the sanitation worker
Speaker 1: if it is to survive. For the person who picks
Speaker 1: up our garbage, in the final analysis, is as significant
Speaker 1: as the physician, for if he doesn't do his job,
Speaker 1: diseases are rampant. All labor has dignity. The plan was
Speaker 1: for King to return on March twenty two, but an
Speaker 1: unexpected snowstorm forced it to be rescheduled to the twenty eight.
Speaker 1: In the interim, the city and the union agreed to
Speaker 1: mediation and round the clock talks, but by those talks
Speaker 1: had once again fallen apart, so by the time they
Speaker 1: thrived the situation in Memphis had become incredibly tense. About
Speaker 1: twenty two thousand students skipped school to be part of
Speaker 1: the march, and before the march actually began, some of
Speaker 1: them were spotted throwing rocks at police. King was also
Speaker 1: delayed and arriving because of a bomb threat, and by
Speaker 1: the time he got there everyone was really on edge,
Speaker 1: and video footage from this mark he was also obviously exhausted.
Speaker 1: Early in the march, violence broke out someone and it's
Speaker 1: not clear who started breaking windows. Looting and fires followed.
Speaker 1: Organizers took King to a hotel as chaos spread through Memphis.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the day, sixty two people were injured,
Speaker 1: nearly all of them black, and an unarmed sixteen year
Speaker 1: old named Larry Payne was shot and killed by police.
Speaker 1: Organizers tried to control the crowd and get them to
Speaker 1: return to Claybourne Temple, African Methodist Episcopal Church, which was
Speaker 1: being used as the headquarters for the strike, but once
Speaker 1: they did, police surrounded the church through tear gas through
Speaker 1: the windows and clubbed people with nightsticks as they escaped.
Speaker 1: About two hundred and eighty people were arrested following the
Speaker 1: incidents of march, the state legislature implemented a seven pm
Speaker 1: curfew in Memphis. The mayor placed the city under martial law,
Speaker 1: and four thousand National Guard troops were called to the scene. Initially,
Speaker 1: the violence that had broken out at the at the
Speaker 1: march was blamed on an organization of young black activists
Speaker 1: known as the Invaders, but one of their leaders, Charles Cabbage,
Speaker 1: met with King and had denied that he had been
Speaker 1: involved in any way, and other interviews other members maintained
Speaker 1: that they knew about and followed King's commitment to non
Speaker 1: violence at the march. So it's I mean, it's just
Speaker 1: really not clear who started the rock throwing in the
Speaker 1: first place. The striking workers continued their daily marches on
Speaker 1: the twenty nine, now proceeding past tanks and National guardsmen
Speaker 1: armed with bayoneted rifles. Many of them carried signs that
Speaker 1: simply read I Am a Man, a slogan credited to
Speaker 1: William Lucy known as Bill from the National Ask Me Office.
Speaker 1: Before he went back to Atlanta, King gave a press
Speaker 1: conference and which he was asked why he had abandoned
Speaker 1: the march. He said that he hadn't abandoned anything that
Speaker 1: he had always said that he wouldn't lead a violent demonstration,
Speaker 1: he found himself under really heavy criticism from all sides.
Speaker 1: To the white community, he was an outside agitator who
Speaker 1: had come to Memphis, start up trouble and left. Critics
Speaker 1: in the black community said that he was out of
Speaker 1: touch with the people of Memphis and what their needs were,
Speaker 1: and that if he didn't connect more with the local
Speaker 1: communities he came to, he would have the same problem
Speaker 1: everywhere he went. After all of this, King debated whether
Speaker 1: to go back to Memphis. On the one hand, this
Speaker 1: situation was obviously volatile. He could not be associated with
Speaker 1: violent demonstrations, nor could the Poor People's Campaign or the
Speaker 1: greater Civil Rights movement. But it seemed just as damaging
Speaker 1: to have gone to Memphis, left in the wake of
Speaker 1: an outbreak of violence, and then stayed away without finishing
Speaker 1: what he started there. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was
Speaker 1: also divided about what Kings should do, but on March
Speaker 1: Thirtie finally agreed to support his going back to Memphis.
Speaker 1: He arrived on April third, at which point the curfew
Speaker 1: and Memphis had been lifted for two days. The plan
Speaker 1: was for him to give an address on the third,
Speaker 1: then then lead a march on the fourth. King delivered
Speaker 1: this address at Mason Temple. The crowd was enormous in
Speaker 1: spite of a terrible storm. In this speech, which is
Speaker 1: known as I've been to the Mountaintop, King said, I've
Speaker 1: seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you,
Speaker 1: but I want you to know tonight that we as
Speaker 1: a people will get to the Promised Land, and we
Speaker 1: will link to the entirety of that speech in the
Speaker 1: show notes to this episode. Yeah, a lot of people
Speaker 1: describe it as as prophetic in hindsight, because it's clear
Speaker 1: in this speech that King thought someone was going to
Speaker 1: kill him. There were plenty of threats that had led
Speaker 1: up to this moment, but like it is really obvious
Speaker 1: from the text of this speech that he was speaking
Speaker 1: as a man who knew that he was going to
Speaker 1: die in service to try and to get justice for
Speaker 1: other people. I don't think that he knew he was
Speaker 1: going to die tomorrow. The next day, April four, King
Speaker 1: was at the Lorraine Mote All getting ready for dinner.
Speaker 1: He left his second floor room and leaned out over
Speaker 1: the railing to talk to people below where he was
Speaker 1: shot at six o one pm. King was pronounced dead
Speaker 1: a little over an hour later. James Earl Ray pleaded
Speaker 1: guilty to the crime, but he later recanted that confession,
Speaker 1: and ongoing questions linger about whether or not he acted alone.
Speaker 1: Shock and outrage followed the assassination, and demonstrations and riots
Speaker 1: swept through cities throughout the United States. In Memphis, Mayor
Speaker 1: Loebe still refused to negotiate. President Lyndon Baines Johnson ultimately
Speaker 1: sent his Secretary of Labor, James Reynolds, to Memphis to
Speaker 1: settle the strike. Reynolds started holding meetings on April six.
Speaker 1: Southern Christian Leadership Conference leaders and Coretta Scott King, King's widow,
Speaker 1: led a silent march in Memphis on April the eight
Speaker 1: to honor Dr King and to support the Memphis sanitation workers.
Speaker 1: Ahead of this march, Reverend James Lawson wrote out instructions
Speaker 1: to the participants. They began, quote, doctor King came to
Speaker 1: Memphis to help all of us, and especially to help
Speaker 1: the sanitation workers win economic justice. We asked him to
Speaker 1: come because we wanted to win this strike as human
Speaker 1: beings and as men, not as animals who used violence.
Speaker 1: Doctor King died in Memphis trying to help us. Today,
Speaker 1: we honor doctor King for the great work he did
Speaker 1: for all people, and particularly his great love and sacrifice
Speaker 1: for us. Lawson's instructions went on to ask how is
Speaker 1: it best to honor him now? And they answered to
Speaker 1: make sure that sanitation workers in Memphis won their rights
Speaker 1: without violence. Then they directed the marchers to carry themselves silently,
Speaker 1: with pride and dignity. The instructions final line read, let
Speaker 1: us march in peace that there shall be peace. More
Speaker 1: than forty people were part of the silent march. Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King Jr's funeral took place in Atlanta the next day,
Speaker 1: April nine. After King's death, the strike continued until negotiates
Speaker 1: finally reached a deal on April sixteenth. Nine. Terms included
Speaker 1: to pay increases totaling fifteen cents an hour, recognition of
Speaker 1: the union, and dues check off. The terms also promised
Speaker 1: the creation of grievance procedures and promotions based on seniority
Speaker 1: and merit. Striking workers were to report for duty, with
Speaker 1: anyone not back on the job by April removed from
Speaker 1: the city payroll. The so called Memorandum of understanding was
Speaker 1: essentially a contract which would expire on June nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 1: Although the city did recognize the union, it didn't set
Speaker 1: the sanitation department up as a union shop. In other words,
Speaker 1: employees did not have to join the union. This gave
Speaker 1: employees freedom to choose to join the union or not,
Speaker 1: but it also gave the union less leverage since it
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily represent all of the employees when trying to negotiate.
Speaker 1: After the Memphis strike, other municipal and service workers in
Speaker 1: the South started to unionize. Asked Me became one of
Speaker 1: the largest unions in the country, and Local seventeen thirty
Speaker 1: three became the largest union in Memphis. On April twenty nine,
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, the Memphis Sanitation Workers were inducted into
Speaker 1: the U. S Department of Labor's Labor Hall of Fame.
Speaker 1: In twenty seventeen, the city of Memphis announced that it
Speaker 1: would compensate the nineteen sixty eight sanitation workers who were
Speaker 1: still living with a tax free grant of fifty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: The city council eventually increased this to seventy thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: This is basically in lieu of a pension and their
Speaker 1: initial negotiations, the union had opted out of the city's
Speaker 1: pension program in favor of social security. It only became
Speaker 1: clear that social security alone would not be enough money
Speaker 1: to secure a person's retirement later on, and this led
Speaker 1: to years of negotiations and a complicated legal tangle that
Speaker 1: was never successfully resolved. The mayor's twenty seventeen announcement also
Speaker 1: included plans to improve retirement benefits for current solid waste
Speaker 1: workers in the city. When the city initially made this announcement,
Speaker 1: it knew of fourteen surviving strikers, and that number has
Speaker 1: since grown to at least twenty six. On December eleventh,
Speaker 1: surviving sanitation workers helped break ground on the I Am
Speaker 1: a Man Plaza at the historic Claybourne Temple. This is
Speaker 1: a memorial for the strike and it's expected to be
Speaker 1: completed before the April anniversaries of King's assassination and the
Speaker 1: strikes end. Then Double A CP honored the strikers at
Speaker 1: their Image Awards on January nine with the Vanguard Award,
Speaker 1: and William Lucy received the Chairman's Award. On January fourteen.
Speaker 1: Surviving workers were in attendance for the ceremony, four of
Speaker 1: whom were still employed as sanitation workers for the city
Speaker 1: of Memphis. There are, as as obvious, a lot of
Speaker 1: facts involved with this still alive. There's also a lot
Speaker 1: of video footage. There is a documentary that I watched
Speaker 1: as part of the research for of this, which is
Speaker 1: called at the River I stand. Um, the Route is
Speaker 1: doing a video series about the strike, really focused on
Speaker 1: the workers themselves. UM. A lot of those videos. I
Speaker 1: don't think any of them are actually out yet as
Speaker 1: of when we were recording this podcast, but they were
Speaker 1: going to start coming out over the coming weeks, so
Speaker 1: that I'm sure we'll be very interesting to watch. Um.
Speaker 1: We should note that a lot of the conditions that
Speaker 1: were being protested during the strikes still exist. There are
Speaker 1: still jobs where you can work full time and still
Speaker 1: qualify for things like snap which is what food stamps
Speaker 1: are called now. So, as is so often the case
Speaker 1: with things that we talked about on the show, Uh,
Speaker 1: conditions that were being protested in still exist in the
Speaker 1: country today. Do you have a little bit of listener mail? Sure?
Speaker 1: New This is from Sarah, and Sarah wrote to say,
Speaker 1: dear Holly and Tracy, you guys are the best. I
Speaker 1: never thought I would enjoy podcasts until my best friend
Speaker 1: recommended yours, and it's been an obsession ever since. I
Speaker 1: started listening to the very beginning of the series back
Speaker 1: in September, and by December, only four months later, I
Speaker 1: had gone through the complete archive and was completely caught up.
Speaker 1: As I went through the series, I had a long
Speaker 1: and comprehensive list of topics I wanted to add my
Speaker 1: two cents to, but then it lost its importance, mostly
Speaker 1: until I listened to a recent podcast on the NORAD
Speaker 1: Santa Tracker. You mentioned the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado Springs,
Speaker 1: and I had to write in. You see, I grew
Speaker 1: up as a military brat GO Air Force, and I
Speaker 1: never knew that there was another underground military site like
Speaker 1: the one in my hometown of Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: It's called Raven Rock Mountain Complex r r m C,
Speaker 1: also known as Site Are Because actually wasn't the first
Speaker 1: time I wanted to plug my little hometown in your podcast.
Speaker 1: The first time was way back when there was a
Speaker 1: Wallace Simpson episode and I knew she was born here
Speaker 1: and I was waiting for my town to be heard
Speaker 1: on the podcast when lo and Behole, all was said
Speaker 1: was that she was born in Pennsylvania. The second time
Speaker 1: was the Gettysburg Battle podcast, because of the Battle of
Speaker 1: Monterey Pass, happened when the Confederates were retreating from Gettysburg.
Speaker 1: Not to mention, my town also has one of the
Speaker 1: oldest golf courses in the country. Funny that we only
Speaker 1: have a population of a thousand people and there's so
Speaker 1: much history packed into our little area. It does help
Speaker 1: that we are located near Gettysburg, Camp David, Fort Detrick,
Speaker 1: and only a few hours from Washington d c uh
Speaker 1: And then she suggests, uh, not necessarily a podcast about
Speaker 1: her hometown, but maybe about some of the other secret
Speaker 1: underground military facilities or some of the less known battles
Speaker 1: of the Civil War. Thank you so much, Sarah, I
Speaker 1: in fact was not aware that there were multiple underground
Speaker 1: under mountain secret military bases. Now I do so thank
Speaker 1: you Sarah for writing in about that. If you would
Speaker 1: like to write to us about this or any other podcast,
Speaker 1: were History podcast that How Stuffworks dot com. We're also
Speaker 1: on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash miss in History.
Speaker 1: Our Twitter is miss in History. Our Pinterest name is
Speaker 1: miss in History, our Instagram, amazmos and history missed in
Speaker 1: History all over the place. You can come to our website,
Speaker 1: which is missed in History dot com, where you will
Speaker 1: find show notes for all the episodes that Holly and
Speaker 1: I haven't done together. The show notes for today's episode
Speaker 1: will include linked to the text of Martin Luther King's
Speaker 1: last speech and so you can do a whole that,
Speaker 1: and a whole lot more at our website, which is
Speaker 1: ms history dot com. For more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics, visit how staff works dot com.