{"id":122026,"date":"2023-11-29T11:51:15","date_gmt":"2023-11-29T11:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=122026"},"modified":"2023-11-29T11:51:17","modified_gmt":"2023-11-29T11:51:17","slug":"how-the-memphis-sanitation-workers-strike-changed-the-labor-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/?p=122026","title":{"rendered":"“How the Memphis Sanitation Workers\u2019 Strike Changed the Labor Movement”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NY Times<\/a>: “Robert Walker, Mr. Walker\u2019s father, was also a sanitation worker. On Feb. 1, 1968, he was collecting garbage when sheets of rain started pouring down. He and his colleague Echol Cole took shelter in the compactor of their truck. When a compressing piston malfunctioned, the two men were crushed. The city had no intention to pay death benefits, offering Robert Walker\u2019s widow only $500 for funeral expenses,\u00a0\u201cif you need it,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0as the official letter put it. She had five children, including Jack, and was pregnant with a sixth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The tragedy was a culmination of slow-burning indignities for Black sanitation workers in Memphis. They earned low wages to lug heavy, open tubs of refuse to their trucks. Rotting garbage seeped onto their skin and clothes. Their white colleagues, who were often drivers, showered at the depot at the end of their shifts. But the Black collectors were forced to ride the bus or walk home in their dank clothes covered in flecks of trash and maggots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fed up, they called a strike. Roughly 1,300 sanitation workers began marching through the streets of Memphis. They carried signs that read \u201cI Am a Man,\u201d with the \u201cAm\u201d underlined. The strike stretched on for weeks. Even as trash began to accumulate on city streets, Memphis\u2019s mayor wouldn\u2019t entertain the strikers\u2019 demands, instead sending in police officers with clubs and mace to break up marches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The strikers\u2019 mission and bravery spoke to Dr. King, who had embarked on a new economic justice effort, the Poor People\u2019s Campaign. He came to Memphis in March and again in April, when, at a local church, he gave an impassioned speech that would turn out to be his last.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two weeks after Dr. King was assassinated on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, the Memphis City Council voted to recognize the sanitation workers\u2019 union, promising higher wages to the largely Black work force.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NY Times: “Robert Walker, Mr. Walker\u2019s father, was also a sanitation worker. On Feb. 1, 1968, he was collecting garbage when sheets of rain started pouring down. He and his colleague Echol Cole took shelter in the compactor of their truck. When a compressing piston malfunctioned, the two men were crushed. The city had no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-newsstory"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=122026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122027,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122026\/revisions\/122027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=122026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=122026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/yellowdogwire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=122026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}