BHM: The Memphis Strike...Dr. King's Last Stand

When most people think about Memphis, they automatically think about Elvis and Graceland, Beale Street, Mudd Island, and the blues. In terms of the civil rights movement, most Americans remember the assassination of Dr. King at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. This motel has since been restored and houses the National Civil Rights Museum and if you have never been to this museum, you are missing out. We went to the museum in 2003 and it is something we will never forget. It is a provocative, engaging, inspiring, and emotional experience.

While Dr. King's assassination should never be forgotten, there are other events associated with Memphis that does not receive much attention. Little is remembered or known about WHY Dr. King was in Memphis at all. King was in Memphis to support the sanitation-worker strike, which culminated from the deaths of two Memphis sanitation workers (Echol Cole and Robert Walker) who were crushed to death by a malfunctioning truck and the city's long pattern of neglect and abuse of its black workers. The book I have read concerning this strike is Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign by Michael K. Honey.

Honey explains how sanitation workers were treated like the trash they dumped into the garbage trucks. For decades, these workers had to work under severe working conditions. Workers had to work with shoddy equipment--equipment the city consistently refused to repair or replace...until the deaths of two sanitation workers. The tragedy ignited a response from the black community. Granted, their wages were so low that many were on welfare, but they needed their jobs regardless. They also knew that they needed to fight for their union rights and economic justice.
The book is thought-provoking. Many questions come to mind. For instance, have things really changed for the poverty-stricken since the strike? Granted, many African American families have moved up the social ladder. But does this move serve to mask the injustices which still plague the poor in America? Has the rise of the middle-class made the working poor even more invisible? Looking at the devastation Hurricane Katrina left behind in the gulf was (and still is) an embarrassing, yet necessary, reminder of how the working poor continue to be invisible or just blatantly ignored. Two issues remain unresolved, and as such, continue to haunt us in the present: racism and poverty. Enjoy the following video....