Speaker 1: Happy Saturday everyone. Since it's a Labor Day weekend here
Speaker 1: in the US, we thought we would re release an
Speaker 1: episode from the archive that's related to labor rights. So
Speaker 1: today we have the Memphis Sanitation Strike which started in
Speaker 1: February of nine. This was the strikes that brought Dr
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King Jr. To Memphis, Tennessee, where he was
Speaker 1: assassinated on April fourth of that year. This episode, which
Speaker 1: originally came out on February seven, talks about the strike,
Speaker 1: both before and after King's involvement. Welcome to Stuff You
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson and
Speaker 1: I'm Holly Frying. We are coming up on the fiftieth
Speaker 1: anniversary of the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike. After voting to
Speaker 1: strike on February eleventh, ninety eight, Memphis sanitation workers stayed
Speaker 1: off the job starting on the twelfth and a strike
Speaker 1: that lasted for nine weeks. This is a strike that
Speaker 1: brought Dr Martin Luther King Junior to Memphis, Tennessee, where
Speaker 1: he was assassinated on April fourth of that year. And
Speaker 1: for a lot of folks, that is really what they
Speaker 1: know about the strike. They know it's the reason that
Speaker 1: Dr King was in Memphis that day, but his assassination
Speaker 1: also really overshadowed to strike itself, which had been going
Speaker 1: on for a month before he arrived on the scene.
Speaker 1: So today we're going to talk about the strike, which
Speaker 1: started out as an effort to secure better pay and
Speaker 1: conditions for sanitation workers in Memphis, but really came to
Speaker 1: be considered part of the greater civil rights movement and
Speaker 1: the movement for economic justice. Memphis sits along the Mississippi
Speaker 1: River in West Tennessee, and today it's population is majority black,
Speaker 1: but in the nineteen sixties his population was about forty
Speaker 1: black at about sixty percent of those black residents were
Speaker 1: living in poverty. More than eighty percent of black men
Speaker 1: living in Memphis were employed doing menially for very low pay.
Speaker 1: Many had moved to the city from nearby rural areas,
Speaker 1: leaving behind sharecropping cotton in the hope of a better life.
Speaker 1: When Memphis City schools desegregated in nineteen sixty one, things
Speaker 1: progressed without the level of violence that struck so many
Speaker 1: other parts of the South. Steering school desegregation by the
Speaker 1: late sixties, the city government included some elected and appointed
Speaker 1: black officials as well, but at the same time, Memphis
Speaker 1: really still had something of a plantation mentality. This mentality
Speaker 1: was particularly obvious in the city's Department of Public Works,
Speaker 1: especially when it came to sanitation. The workforce for waste
Speaker 1: collection was overwhelmingly black, with the only white employees working
Speaker 1: as supervisors or drivers. In bad weather, employees who worked
Speaker 1: outside who were predominantly black would be sent home without pay,
Speaker 1: while their supervisors, who were white, were allowed to stay
Speaker 1: on the job, even though there really wasn't much for
Speaker 1: them to do. Most of the garbage collectors made minimum wage,
Speaker 1: which was a dollar in sixty cents an hour for
Speaker 1: forty hours of work a week. There was no overtime pay,
Speaker 1: but you were expected to work for as long as
Speaker 1: it took you to finish your collection route, no matter
Speaker 1: how long that took. So a lot of the men
Speaker 1: were working more like sixty hours a week for forty
Speaker 1: hours of pay. This was just not enough money to
Speaker 1: make ends meet. About memphisis sanitation workers qualified for welfare assistance,
Speaker 1: hundreds were on food stamps, and some had second jobs.
Speaker 1: But there was a perception in Memphis that sanitation workers
Speaker 1: had a benefit that made up for this. They got
Speaker 1: so called handouts from households when they collected garbage. This
Speaker 1: was generally cast off clothing given to the workers rather
Speaker 1: than just throwing it away. Aside from the pay, sanitation
Speaker 1: workers had a dehumanizing, filthy, and physically demanding job, and
Speaker 1: most parts of town trash wasn't brought out to the
Speaker 1: curb on collection day, and workers had to go behind
Speaker 1: every house to retrieve a fifty five gallon metal garbage
Speaker 1: can or a tub and then haul it back to
Speaker 1: the truck. For the smaller tubs, you could ease some
Speaker 1: of the strain on your arms and your back by
Speaker 1: carrying it on your head or on your shoulder, but
Speaker 1: this was before the days of using plastic liners and
Speaker 1: trash cans, so the cans leaked everything from filthy water
Speaker 1: to maggots on the people who were carrying them. Sanitation
Speaker 1: workers had nowhere to shower or change clothes on the job,
Speaker 1: so they had to go home at the end of
Speaker 1: the day in the same filthy clothes and take off
Speaker 1: as much as they could before they got into the house.
Speaker 1: They had no clean place to eat lunch, no paid
Speaker 1: time off, no grievance process, and no workers comp if
Speaker 1: they were injured on the job. In fact, if you
Speaker 1: were injured on the job, you ran the risk of
Speaker 1: being fired for it. In addition to not having a
Speaker 1: clean place to eat lunch, they didn't have anywhere to
Speaker 1: wash their hands before eating lunch. UH. And there are
Speaker 1: like oral histories and and other uh interviews where they
Speaker 1: talk about, like we would find a scrap of soap
Speaker 1: that had been thrown away, and like try to use
Speaker 1: that to wash our hands before we ate. Collecting garbage
Speaker 1: 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 nineteen fifty eight to nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, and he had led a spontaneous walk out
Speaker 1: of thirty two other workers that year. All of those workers,
Speaker 1: including Jones, were fired. Most of them eventually got their
Speaker 1: jobs back, but rather than returning to work for the city,
Speaker 1: Jones turned his attention to labor activism. In August of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, after months of work. The American Federation
Speaker 1: of State, County and Municipal Employees or asked me, granted
Speaker 1: the sanitation workers a charter as Local seventeen thirty three.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this is actually intentional, but a
Speaker 1: lot of the like the local lore about it is
Speaker 1: that thirty three at the end of the number is
Speaker 1: in reference to those thirty three workers who had walked
Speaker 1: out and been fired in uh in nineteen 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 individual 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 the 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 join
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 defeated incumbent William B. Ingram. Ingram's
Speaker 1: record on race wasn't all that progressive, but he had
Speaker 1: spoken to black church congregations, and he had a reputation
Speaker 1: for treating black defendants fairly in his work as a judge,
Speaker 1: and the election that led to that runoff, Artie Walker Willis,
Speaker 1: known as a w had also been defeated. Willis was
Speaker 1: a black civil rights activist, a lawyer, and a businessman
Speaker 1: who had helped desegregate Memphis public gools. So with the
Speaker 1: defeats of both Willis and Ingram, and the election of
Speaker 1: Henry Loebe the nineteen sixties seven mayoral election felt like
Speaker 1: a huge step backward for the black community in Memphis.
Speaker 1: The second event was the tragic and horrifying deaths of
Speaker 1: two sanitation workers on February one, Echo Cole and Robert
Speaker 1: Walker had taken shelter in the back of their garbage
Speaker 1: truck to try to get out of a heavy rain.
Speaker 1: A short circuit caused the truck's compactor to start without warning,
Speaker 1: and they weren't able to escape. These trucks were well
Speaker 1: past the end of their life expectancy, and the workers
Speaker 1: had been raising concerns about their safety for months before
Speaker 1: this tragic event happened. Cole and Walker were both in
Speaker 1: their thirties. They both had families and children, and the
Speaker 1: city gave each family five hundred dollars to cover funeral
Speaker 1: expenses along with a month's pay for Cole and Walker.
Speaker 1: They got no other compensation, no other insurance pay out,
Speaker 1: and no one from the city attended either man's funeral.
Speaker 1: The city also did nothing to us whether the same
Speaker 1: malfunction could happen again in all these trucks that were
Speaker 1: still on the road. After the two men's deaths, union
Speaker 1: leaders stepped up their efforts to get the city to
Speaker 1: officially recognize the union and to allow the union to
Speaker 1: negotiate a contract for the sanitation workers. Mayor Loebes steadfastly refused.
Speaker 1: This refusal is what ultimately led the men to strike,
Speaker 1: which we are going to get to after a quick
Speaker 1: sponsor break. On February eleventh, after talks with the city
Speaker 1: failed to reach any kind of resolution, the Memphis Sanitation
Speaker 1: Workers Union voted to go on strike. Ed Gillis, who
Speaker 1: was one of the workers, became their main liaison with
Speaker 1: t O Jones, and Jones became the workers representative with
Speaker 1: the city. Going on strike was a risky decision. On
Speaker 1: top of the inherent risk in walking off the job
Speaker 1: and the loss of income that comes with it, Striking
Speaker 1: workers often face harassment, intimidation, threats, and even violence. Then
Speaker 1: there was also the injunction prohibiting municipal employees from going
Speaker 1: on strike. The workers also voted to strike without discussing
Speaker 1: it with National ASTHMA leadership. They knew that the national
Speaker 1: organization wasn't really likely to support this decision. In general,
Speaker 1: garbage strikes are a lot more effective in the summer
Speaker 1: because it's hot and the garbage is a lot stickier,
Speaker 1: and the public gets a lot more on board with
Speaker 1: getting things resolved quickly. The national organization also didn't have
Speaker 1: a fund that could support the strike, but knew that
Speaker 1: the city already had a strong anti union sentiment, and
Speaker 1: it was a union of black workers and a majority
Speaker 1: white Southern city with a segregationist mayor. So at the
Speaker 1: beginning of the strike, the Memphis sanitation workers were essentially
Speaker 1: on their own regardless. On Monday, February twelve, most of
Speaker 1: the city's hundred sanitation workers did not go to work.
Speaker 1: According to reports, two hundred or so state on them,
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 ub A CP, endorsed the strike on
Speaker 1: the sixteenth of February. On the eighteenth asked me national
Speaker 1: president Jerry Wirth 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 subcommittee's resolution. The striking workers arranged a
Speaker 1: non violent 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 fiftundred people was, of course disappointed and angry
Speaker 1: at this decision. They started their return march from City
Speaker 1: Hall back to Mason Temple, Church of God in Christ,
Speaker 1: but as they were marching, police started nudging their cruisers
Speaker 1: into 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 violent civil 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 ninety one. He's one of
Speaker 1: the civil rights leaders alive as of when we are
Speaker 1: recording this podcast. Over the course of the strike, Come
Speaker 1: printed its own newspaper called The Appeal to keep the
Speaker 1: community informed about what was happening and offer guidance about
Speaker 1: how to stay involved in to rally the greater community
Speaker 1: around the cause of the striking workers. This included daily
Speaker 1: marches and protests with the intent of filling Memphis jails
Speaker 1: with non violent demonstrators. Another of the organization strategies was
Speaker 1: a boycott of all downtown Memphis businesses, especially the ones
Speaker 1: that had connections to the mayor and his family. A
Speaker 1: 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 at i in the church
Speaker 1: community and civil rights organizations that were arranging demonstrations and
Speaker 1: aid for the striking workers. Women prepared food, they laundered
Speaker 1: and 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
Speaker 1: began to our fellow citizens, we apologize for the inconvenience
Speaker 1: created by the mayor of your city. He has refused
Speaker 1: to recognize the basic human needs of the workers who
Speaker 1: provide vital services to you and your family. Every Man
Speaker 1: should receive a decent wage for his labor. Every Man
Speaker 1: should have the right to have his grievances resolved in
Speaker 1: an orderly fashion without fear of reprisal. Every Man who
Speaker 1: performs his work should have security on his job. Every
Speaker 1: man should have adequate insurance to meet the needs of
Speaker 1: unexpected illness or death. And the letter went on from
Speaker 1: there and it concluded that these were not issues of
Speaker 1: race relations, that it was about economic justice and dignity
Speaker 1: for all of those who work for a living. On
Speaker 1: February twenty nine, the mayor published a letter of his
Speaker 1: own in the Memphis Press Simitar, in which he maintained
Speaker 1: again that the strike was illegal and that no negotiation
Speaker 1: would happen until everyone returned to work. Only after everyone
Speaker 1: went back to work would he meet with representatives of
Speaker 1: the Public Works Department and, in his words, quote, make
Speaker 1: our meaningful grievance procedure even more meaningful. The letter said
Speaker 1: that the mayor would recommend an eight cent raised, but
Speaker 1: it also made it clear that he would not approve
Speaker 1: dudes check off. The mayor also sent letters to every
Speaker 1: striking worker, and each letter invited that man back to
Speaker 1: work that day without union recognition and without any other concessions.
Speaker 1: The union filed a suit against the city in federal court,
Speaker 1: but the court rejected that suit on March one. The
Speaker 1: same day, the mayor's home was vandalized and he blamed
Speaker 1: the striking workers. By this point, the Memphis strike had
Speaker 1: started to gain more attention among national civil rights leaders.
Speaker 1: Reverend Lawson and was a friend and colleague of Dr.
Speaker 1: Martin Luther King, Jr. And he had been in touch
Speaker 1: with him about the strike, and on March five, the
Speaker 1: announcement came that King was coming to Memphis. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk more about this part of the story after we
Speaker 1: first paused for a little sponsor break. In March of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, tensions in Memphis were escalating. Ten union
Speaker 1: leaders had been jailed for contempt of court. On the sixth,
Speaker 1: demonstrators held a mock funeral at City Hall to symbolically
Speaker 1: more in the depth of freedom in Memphis. Trash fires
Speaker 1: had broken out in South Memphis on the eight and
Speaker 1: the nash Sational Guard had started holding drills at the
Speaker 1: Mayor's suggestion a day later. By mid March, national civil
Speaker 1: rights leaders had arrived on the scene, including in double
Speaker 1: a CP Executive secretary Roy Wilkins and Buyard Rustin, who
Speaker 1: is the subject of a two part podcast in our archive.
Speaker 1: Ralph David Abernathy and James Bevel of the Southern Christian
Speaker 1: Leadership Conference came to Memphis to work with the strike
Speaker 1: as well. On March fourteenth, Roy Wilkins met with a
Speaker 1: crowd of about ten thousand people and encouraged them to
Speaker 1: approach the strike as a non violent protest, and on
Speaker 1: the fifteenth he held a news conference expressing the national
Speaker 1: civil rights movements support of this strike. At this point,
Speaker 1: Dr Martin Luther King Jr. Was working on the Poor
Speaker 1: People's Campaign. This is a planned series of protests for
Speaker 1: economic justice, jobs, education, and housing which were to culminate
Speaker 1: in a takeover and mass occupation of the National Mall
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. During this occupation, people would live
Speaker 1: on the mall in a shanty town to emphasize the
Speaker 1: disparities and wealth between rich and poor people in the
Speaker 1: United States. King had begun to conceive of the Poor
Speaker 1: People's Campaign after visiting some of the poorest parts of
Speaker 1: the South, after which he refocused his own advocacy to
Speaker 1: include economic inequality in addition to racial inequality. And even
Speaker 1: though the Poor People's Campaign was ultimately focused on Washington,
Speaker 1: King saw how compatible the Memphis strike was with it,
Speaker 1: so he decided to basically make the Memphis strike part
Speaker 1: of the Poor People's Campaign. He arrived in Memphis on
Speaker 1: March eighteenth, more than a month into the strike, which
Speaker 1: 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 marked
Speaker 1: 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 later 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 must come to see this. One day
Speaker 1: our society will come to respect the sanitation worker. If
Speaker 1: it is to survive for the person who picks up
Speaker 1: our garbage, and the final analysis is as significant as
Speaker 1: the physician, for if he doesn't do his job, diseases
Speaker 1: are rampant. All labor has dignity. The plan was for
Speaker 1: King to return on March twenty two, but an unexpected
Speaker 1: snowstorm forced it to be rescheduled to they In the interim,
Speaker 1: the city and the union agreed to mediation and round
Speaker 1: the clock talks, but by those talks had once again
Speaker 1: fallen apart, so by the time they arrived, the situation
Speaker 1: in Memphis had become incredibly tense. About twenty two thousand
Speaker 1: students skipped school to be part of the march, and
Speaker 1: before the march actually began, some of them were spotted
Speaker 1: throwing rocks at police. King was also delayed and arriving
Speaker 1: because of a bomb threat, and by the time he
Speaker 1: got there everyone was really on edge, and video footage
Speaker 1: from this march, he was also obviously exhausted. Early in
Speaker 1: the march, violence broke out someone and it's not clear
Speaker 1: who started breaking windows. Looting and fires followed. Organizers took
Speaker 1: King to a hotel as chaos spread through Memphis over
Speaker 1: 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 twenty eight, the state legislature implemented a
Speaker 1: seven pm curfew in Memphis. The mayor placed the city
Speaker 1: under martial law, and four thousand National Guard troops were
Speaker 1: called to the scene. Initially, the violence that had broken
Speaker 1: out at the at the march was blamed on an
Speaker 1: organization of young black activists known as the Invaders, but
Speaker 1: one of their leaders, Charles Cabbage, met with King and
Speaker 1: had denied that he had been involved in any way,
Speaker 1: and other interviews other members maintained that they knew about
Speaker 1: and followed King's commitment to non vin at the march.
Speaker 1: So it's I mean, it's just really not clear who
Speaker 1: started the rock throwing in the first place. The striking
Speaker 1: workers continued their daily marches on the twenty nine, now
Speaker 1: proceeding past tanks and National guardsmen armed with bayoneted rifles.
Speaker 1: Many of them carried signs that simply read I Am
Speaker 1: a Man, a slogan credited to William Lucy known as
Speaker 1: Bill from the National as swe Office. Before he went
Speaker 1: back to Atlanta, King gave a press conference and which
Speaker 1: he was asked why he had abandoned the march. He
Speaker 1: said that he hadn't abandoned anything, that he had always
Speaker 1: said that he wouldn't lead a violent demonstration. He found
Speaker 1: himself under really heavy criticism from all sides. To the
Speaker 1: white community, he was an outside agitator who had come
Speaker 1: to Memphis start up trouble and left. Critics in the
Speaker 1: black community said that he was out of touch with
Speaker 1: the people of Memphis and what their needs were, and
Speaker 1: that if he didn't connect more with the local communities
Speaker 1: he came to, he would have the same problem everywhere
Speaker 1: he went. After all of the King debated whether to
Speaker 1: go back to Memphis. On the one hand, this situation
Speaker 1: was obviously volatile. He could not be associated with violent demonstrations,
Speaker 1: nor could the Poor People's Campaign or the greater Civil
Speaker 1: Rights movement. But it seemed just as damaging to have
Speaker 1: gone to Memphis, left in the wake of an outbreak
Speaker 1: of violence, and then stayed away without finishing what he
Speaker 1: started there. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was also divided
Speaker 1: about what King should do, but on March thirtie finally
Speaker 1: agreed to support his going back to Memphis. He arrived
Speaker 1: on April three, at which point the curfew and Memphis
Speaker 1: had been lifted for two days. The plan was for
Speaker 1: him to give an address on the third, then then
Speaker 1: lead a march on the fourth. King delivered this address
Speaker 1: at Mason Temple. The crowd was enormous in spite of
Speaker 1: a terrible storm. In this speech, which is known as
Speaker 1: I've been to the Mountaintop, King said, I've seen the
Speaker 1: Promised Land. I may not get there with you, but
Speaker 1: I want you to know tonight that we as a
Speaker 1: people will get to the Promised Land and we will wait.
Speaker 1: To the entirety of that speech. In the show notes
Speaker 1: to this episode, Yeah, a lot of people describe it
Speaker 1: as as prophetic in hindsight, because it's clear in this
Speaker 1: speech that King thought someone was going to kill him.
Speaker 1: There were plenty of threats that had led up to
Speaker 1: this moment, but like it is really obvious from the
Speaker 1: text of this speech that he was speaking as a
Speaker 1: man who knew that he was going to die in
Speaker 1: service to try and to get justice for other people.
Speaker 1: I don't think that he knew he was going to
Speaker 1: die tomorrow. The next day, April four, King was at
Speaker 1: the Lorraine Motel getting ready for dinner. He left his
Speaker 1: second floor room and leaned out over the railing to
Speaker 1: talk to people below, where he was shot at six
Speaker 1: o one pm. King was pronounced dead a little over
Speaker 1: an hour later. James Earl Ray pleaded guilty to the crime,
Speaker 1: but he later recanted that confession, and ongoing questions linger
Speaker 1: about whether or not he act alone. Shock and outrage
Speaker 1: followed the assassination, and demonstrations and riots swept through cities
Speaker 1: throughout the United States. In Memphis, Mayor Loebe still refused
Speaker 1: to negotiate. President Lyndon Baines Johnson ultimately sent his Secretary
Speaker 1: of Labor, James Reynolds, to Memphis to settle the strike.
Speaker 1: Reynolds started holding meetings on April six. Southern Christian Leadership
Speaker 1: Conference leaders and Coretta Scott King, King's widow let a
Speaker 1: silent march in Memphis on April the eight to honor
Speaker 1: Dr King and to support the Memphis sanitation workers. Ahead
Speaker 1: of this march, Reverend James Lawson wrote out instructions to
Speaker 1: the participants. They began, quote, Doctor King came to Memphis
Speaker 1: to help all of us, and especially to help the
Speaker 1: sanitation workers win economic justice. We asked him to come
Speaker 1: because we wanted to win this strike as human beings
Speaker 1: and as men, not as animals who used violence. Doctor
Speaker 1: King died in Memphis trying to help us. Today we
Speaker 1: honor Doctor or 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 negotiators
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 and not back on the job by April removed
Speaker 1: from the city payroll. The so called memorandum of understanding
Speaker 1: was essentially a contract which would expire on June nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine. Although the city did recognize the union, it
Speaker 1: didn't set the sanitation department up as a union shop.
Speaker 1: In other words, employees did not have to join the union.
Speaker 1: This gave employees freedom to choose to join the union
Speaker 1: or not, but it also gave the union less leverage
Speaker 1: since it didn't necessarily represent all of the employees when
Speaker 1: trying to negotiate. After the Memphis strike, other municipal and
Speaker 1: service workers in the South started to unionize. Asked ME
Speaker 1: became one of the largest unions in the country, and
Speaker 1: local seventeen thirty three became the largest union in Memphis.
Speaker 1: On April twenty nine, two thousand eleven, the Memphis Sanitation
Speaker 1: Workers were inducted into the U. S. Department of Labor's
Speaker 1: Labor Hall of Fame. In twenty seventeen, the City of
Speaker 1: Memphis announced that it would compensate the nineteen sixty sanitation
Speaker 1: workers who were still living with a tax free grant
Speaker 1: of fifty thou dollars. The city Council eventually increased this
Speaker 1: to seventy thousand dollars. This is basically in lieu of
Speaker 1: a pension, and their initial negotiations, the union had opted
Speaker 1: out of the city's pension program in favor of social security.
Speaker 1: It only became clear that social security alone would not
Speaker 1: be enough money to secure a person's retirement later on,
Speaker 1: and this led to years of negotiations and a complicated
Speaker 1: legal tangle that was never successfully resolved. The mayor's twenty
Speaker 1: seventeen announcement also included plans to improve retirement benefits for
Speaker 1: current solid waste workers in the city. When the city
Speaker 1: initially made this announcement, it knew of fourteen surviving strikers,
Speaker 1: and that number has since grown to at least twenty six.
Speaker 1: On December eleven, surviving sanitation workers helped break ground on
Speaker 1: the I Am a Man Plaza at the historic Claybourne Temple.
Speaker 1: This is a memorial for the strike and it's expected
Speaker 1: to be completed before the April anniversaries of King's assassination
Speaker 1: and the strikes end. The Double A CP honored the
Speaker 1: strikers at their Image Awards on January nine with the
Speaker 1: Vanguard Award, and William Lucy received the Chairman's Award. On
Speaker 1: January fourteen. Surviving workers were in attendance for the ceremony,
Speaker 1: four of whom were still employed as sanitation workers for
Speaker 1: the City of Memphis. There are, as as obvious, a
Speaker 1: lot of folks involved with this still alive. There's also
Speaker 1: a lot of video footage. There is a documentary that
Speaker 1: I watched as part of the research for this, which
Speaker 1: is called At the River I Stand. Um. The Route
Speaker 1: is doing a video series about the strike, really focused
Speaker 1: on the workers themselves. UM. A lot of those videos.
Speaker 1: I don't think any of them are actually out yet
Speaker 1: as of when we are recording this podcast, but they're
Speaker 1: going to start coming out over the coming weeks, so
Speaker 1: that I'm sure will be very interesting to watch. We
Speaker 1: should note that a lot of the conditions that we're
Speaker 1: being protested during the strikes still exist. There are still
Speaker 1: jobs where you can work full time and still qualify
Speaker 1: for things like snap which is what food stamps are
Speaker 1: called now, So, as is so often the case with
Speaker 1: things that we talked about on the show, UH, conditions
Speaker 1: that were being protested in still exists in the country today.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. Since
Speaker 1: this episode is out of the archive, if you heard
Speaker 1: an email address or a Facebook U r L or
Speaker 1: something similar over the course of the show that could
Speaker 1: be obsolete now. Our current email address is History Podcast
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Speaker 1: works email address no longer works, and you can find
Speaker 1: us all over social media at missed in History and
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