Part 3

The Death of King

The Struggles Sanitation Workers Still Face

The month of March was met with the heaviest activities from protesters and supporters of the 1968 Memphis Black Sanitation Workers Strike. Protesters staged sit-ins at City Hall, set fires to trash and boycotted stores, while their heavy downtown presence intimidated Whites from patronizing businesses. Strikers chanted dirges in mock funeral processions to symbolize the death of liberty.

Meanwhile, Memphis Mayor Henry Loeb remained defiant, budging little if any at meetings with workers’ representatives, visits from NAACP leaders and strikes led by those like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Ralph Abernathy. Protesters and the nation waited for another appearance by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who already had joined marchers on March 18.

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his prophetic “I’ve been to the mountaintop” speech at Mason Temple in Memphis the day before he was killed. (AFSCME Photo)

King’s arrival 10 days later was impactful, but not in the way he planned. Strikers often met at Clayborn Temple, an African Methodist Episcopal Church, to rally and to pace forward to City Hall or the courthouse. The church had a White minister, Malcolm Blackburn, who also was a printer. It was in the church’s basement that he allowed strikers to print “I AM A MAN” posters, inspired by local activist Rev. James Lawson’s words to sanitation workers: “For at the heart of racism is the idea that a man is not a man, that a person is not a person. You are human beings. You are men. You deserve dignity.”

But on March 28, as King led protesters from Clayborn Temple toward City Hall, someone broke windows along the route. Police went on a beating frenzy, hitting protesters and spraying mace and teargas. They arrested nearly 300 of the demonstrators and injured scores of others. They shot and killed 16-year-old Larry Payne, not yet a man. The teen’s death gave more momentum to the movement.

In the final segment of the three-part series, the AFRO revisits the last few weeks of the march, King’s impact and the struggles the sanitation workers still face today, despite their feats from  50 years ago.

For workers like the Rev. Cleophus Smith, Ozell Ueal, Elmore Nickleberry and James Winton, King’s reappearance at the Mason Temple on April 3, summed up his decades-long fight as parity’s conductor and signaled more self reliance for those who looked to him to balance the scales for Blacks. Ueal, Smith and Winton actually were at the Mason Temple when King delivered his prophetic speech, which underscored the country’s incremental moves toward justice, yet dismissed despair.  His “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech was painstakingly hopeful and would be revered as one of the greatest speeches of all time.

“It was something else. The Mason Temple was full of people, White and Black, but mostly Blacks,” said Winton.  Smith said it was like being on “Cloud 19.” “When he spoke the last words: He may not get to the promised land with us, but we would get to the promised land…It was like the whole place stood up and shouted.”

The next day, April 4, 1968, James Earl Ray, from 200 feet away, took aim, pulled the trigger and shot King as he stood on the second story balcony of Memphis’ Lorraine Motel. King was pronounced dead at a Memphis hospital. Winton recalled the guilt he felt: “He was trying to help us and got killed,” he said.

The death of King didn’t stop the movement. The message soon flashed from the top to resolve the protest, as cities across the country erupted in violence. President Lyndon Johnson sent the Undersecretary of Labor, James Reynolds, to mediate and settle the strike. On April 8, King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, and other national and local leaders, led a peaceful protest in downtown Memphis, symbolic of the slain leader’s nonviolent message and to memorialize his mission. Two days later, Reynolds, the city and the union came to an agreement. The strike ended on April 16 with an agreement reached between the parties.

The American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) announced the end of the strike on April 16, as an agreement was met between all parties, according to the union’s published reports.

Some of the workers initially received a raise of 10 cents per hour, and gained another five cents more, later. Blacks were afforded more chances to get supervisory jobs and better safety conditions were instituted.

Fifty years later the movement has raised salaries and conditions for workers, but employees still struggle, and the younger ones lack direction, a few of the surviving ’68 strikers agreed. Nickleberry and Rev. Smith are still public works employees.

“They need to step up to the plate,” said Smith, referring to some of the younger employees. Smith explained that there are a number of temporary workers who seek full-time employment in a department that has a little less than half the sanitation workers it had in 1968– and the city has grown. “We try to keep these people encouraged…They are just throwing in the towel, so to speak, because they are being ambushed,” he added. “I’m still working, but I’m working for a cause. I tell the young people that’s out there to take the torch and run. Don’t stand still.”