The Memphis
Sanitation Strike
On Monday, Feb. 12, 1968, 1,300 black sanitation workers in Memphis
walked off their jobs. Their union was the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), AFL-CIO.
The strike had started over a sewer worker’s grievance. Twenty-two black
employees of that department who reported for work on Jan. 31 were sent
home when it began raining. White employees were not sent home, and when
the rain stopped after an hour or so, were put out to work and paid for the full
day. After the black workers complained, the city tried to mollify them by
paying them for two hours’ work.
The union demands were: better pay and working conditions, recognition
of the union and a system of dues checkoff. The mayor of Memphis, Henry
Loeb, refused to recognize the union, maintained that the strike was illegal
and refused to discuss the workers’ grievances until after they returned to
work.
In addition, Memphis blacks felt deeply offended by the racist attitude of
a cartoon in the local paper. They were also indignant because they felt the
police had overreacted to a protest march by blacks by spraying Mace into the
faces of the demonstrators. An aroused, angry and united group of ministers
now led the black community into a campaign which broadened the original
issues of the strike. It included a boycott of all downtown stores, the Memphis
newspapers and marches and mass meetings in support of the strikers.
Meanwhile, the city secured a court injunction prohibiting striking against
the city or picketing city property. Under its provisions, union leaders could
be held in contempt and jailed if they disobeyed the injunction.
Also, two Memphis senators in the state legislature at Nashville intro-
duced bills that would have outlawed the sanitation strike and prohibited
union dues checkoffs from government paychecks. Organized labor in Ten-
nessee at this point reacted vigorously and put pressure on state senators to de-
feat the bills.
Support for the sanitation workers also came from some white union mem-
bers, 500 of whom marched together with the blacks on March 4. However,
the strike dragged on without a settlement in view and tension mounted in the
city.
The black community was now determined to keep pressing for more than
the sanitation workers’ rights.
It was concerned as well with police treatment, decent housing, job equal-
ity and above all, dignity. And to the black sanitation workers, recognition of
their union by the city was crucial, because it meant that they would be treated
as men and as equals, not as hired plantation hands at the mercy of the white
boss.
Except for the support of some white unions, however, no element of white
leadership in Memphis undertook to join hands with the blacks. The churches,
the newspapers, business leaders, and the city council either supported the
mayor or kept hands off.
Martin Luther King Jr. was now asked to appear on the scene to rally sup-
port for the sanitation workers. As the most magnetic civil rights leader in the
country, he was in a position to focus national attention upon the plights of the
Memphis blacks. Important labor leaders from all over the country expressed
support and solidarity.
It was while he was on this mission in Memphis that King was assassi-
nated on April 4, 1968. In a massive march which followed his death, civil
rights and labor leaders pointed out that the most appropriate response the
country could make would be to move towards a realization of King’s goals,
which began with a just settlement of the sanitation strike.
One immediate result of King’s martyrdom was that it helped to win a
victory for his last cause. Under pressure from civil rights and labor leaders,
faced with black militancy and unanimity, worried about the effects of more
boycotts and possible violence, the white Memphis establishment gave in.
The city now did what the mayor swore it would never do — recognized the
union, permitted a dues checkoff, granted a pay raise and introduced a system
of merit promotions.
In this, his last campaign, Martin Luther King had chosen to join a labor
fight — a fight that meant economic gains for black workers. King’s decision
to lead an economic offensive using a labor-civil rights alliance was a signif-
icant return to the strategy of the early 1960s and the March on Washington.
Still ahead were the struggles for more jobs, better housing and improved ed-
ucational opportunities for all backs. But, someone else would have to lead
them.
(Originally published by the American Federation of Teachers in Chang-
ing Education, 1975)
JANUARY 20, 2006
Martin Luther King talks about the labor movement
“The labor movement was the prin-
cipal force that transformed misery and
despair into hope and progress. Out of
its bold struggles, economic and social
reform gave birth to unemployment in-
surance, old-age pensions, government
relief for the destitute and, above all,
new wage levels that meant not mere
survival but a tolerable life. The cap-
tains of industry did not lead this trans-
formation; they resisted it until they
were overcome. When in the ’30s the
wave of union organization crested over
the nation, it carried to secure shores not
only itself but the whole society.”
—Speech to the state convention of
the Illinois AFL-CIO, Oct. 7, 1965
“Less than a century ago the laborer
had no rights, little or no respect, and
led a life which was socially submerged
and barren ... . American industry or-
ganized misery into sweatshops and
proclaimed the right of capital to act
without restraints and without con-
science. The inspiring answer to this in-
tolerable and dehumanizing existence
was economic organization through
trade unions. The worker became deter-
mined not to wait for charitable im-
pulses to grow in his employer. He con-
structed the means by which fairer
sharing of the fruits of his toil had to be
given to him or the wheels of industry,
which he alone turned, would halt and
wealth for no one would be available... .
“History is a great teacher. Now
everyone knows that the labor move-
ment did not diminish the strength of
the nation but enlarged it. By raising the
living standards of millions, labor
miraculously created a market for in-
dustry and lifted the whole nation to un-
dreamed-of levels of production. Those
who attack labor forget these simple
truths, but history remembers them.
“Negroes are almost entirely a work-
ing people ... . Our needs are identical
with labor’s needs: decent wages, fair
working conditions, livable housing,
old-age security, health and welfare
measures, conditions in which families
can grow, have education for their chil-
dren and respect in the community. That
is why Negroes support labor’s de-
mands and fight laws which curb labor.
That is why the labor-hater and labor-
baiter is virtually always a twin-headed
creature, spewing anti-Negro epithets
from one mouth and anti-labor propa-
ganda from the other mouth.”
—Speaking to the AFL-CIO
on Dec. 11, 1961
“In our glorious fight for civil rights,
we must guard against being fooled by
false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It
is a law to rob us of our civil rights and
job rights. It is supported by Southern
segregationists who are trying to keep
us from achieving our civil rights and
our right of equal job opportunity. Its
purpose is to destroy labor unions and
the freedom of collective bargaining by
which unions have improved wages and
working conditions of everyone …
Wherever these laws have been passed,
wages are lower, job opportunities are
fewer and there are no civil rights. We
do not intend to let them do this to us.
We demand this fraud be stopped. Our
weapon is our vote.”
—Speaking on right-to-work
laws in 1961
“With the settlement of many of
these early strikes, there was little or
nothing added to the pay envelope, little
or nothing for job security and a moun-
tain of debts to pay and harsh memories
to forget. Yet there was one thing that
was won, one thing that was fought for
as indispensable, one thing for which all
the pain and sacrifice was justified —
union recognition. It seemed so minis-
cule a victory that people outside the la-
bor movement scorned it as in fact just a
defeat. But to those who understood,
union recognition meant the employer’s
acknowledgement of that strength, and
the two meant the opportunity to fight
again for further gains with united and
multiplied power. As contract followed
contract, the pay envelope fattened and
fringe benefits and job rights grew to
the mature work standards of today. All
of these started with winning first union
recognition.”
—Speaking to shop stewards of the
Allied Trades Council on May 2, 1967
Brotherhood (and Sisterhood) of Man
“I am convinced that we shall overcome because the arc
of the universe is long but it bends toward justice. We
shall overcome because Carlyle is right when he says,
‘No lie can live forever.’ We shall overcome because
William Cullen Bryant is right when he says, ‘Truth
crusted to earth will rise again.’ We shall overcome be-
cause James Russell Lowell was right when he pro-
claimed: ‘Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong
forever on the throne, yet that scaffold sways the future...” Yes, this will be the day when all
of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics,
will be able to join hands all over this nation and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
‘Free At Last, Free At Last. Thank God Almighty, We Are Free At Last.’ ”
Dr Martin Luther King: “If the Negro Wins, Labor Wins,” delivered before the Fourth
Constitutional Convention of the American Federation of Labor-
Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), Dec. 11, 1961
A message from your sisters and brothers in AFSCME Local 88, who celebrate the work,
ideals and hopes of this great leader and find inspiration yet in Dr. King’s words.
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
PAGE 7