For Garbage and Labor – Martin Luther King
by run75441
For Garbage and Labor
“I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the Promised Land.”
February 1968, 1,300 Sanitation Workers of Memphis went on strike for better working conditions and benefits, doing so with little support from the International AFSCME. Forced to carry poorly contained garbage in 60 gallon leaking and maggot infested containers from the backs of yards, the workers struck for safer working conditions, healthcare, etc. Angered by the deaths of two of their fellow workers and the sending home of 22 black sewer workers while white workers continued working the union led by T. O Jones walked out. Crushed to death when the garbage truck’s faulty controls activated the hydraulic ram, the two workers were seeking shelter from a rain storm inside the back end of the truck as there was nowhere else they were allowed to go. The city paid each of the dead worker’s families $500 plus 1 month’s pay. The average wage of the sanitation worker was $.33/hour.
While initially seeking benefits and better working conditions, the strike became racially tense after the city refused to talk to the union representatives, white supervisors acted arbitrarily, and the city’s white populace, led by conservative Mayor Henry Loeb, grew angry with the black union’s strike. The “I Am A Man1 ” slogan came to symbolize the demands of the union workers for dignity, better working conditions, and an answer to the attack on the strikers and prominent black leaders by the Memphis police during a march to the city hall. The city was split into two camps, one black and one white.
Martin Luther King came to Memphis in support the strike as a part to his “Poor People’s Campaign” to Washington DC. On March 18, Martin Luther King’s spoke to 17,000 people about the dignity of labor and America’s failed promise to Black Americans and those living in poverty. It drew national attention to the failing strike from the media and other trade unions. Later in March, King returned to Memphis to lead a march through Memphis with the workers. The march degenerated into violence as young blacks fought with police in the rear of the march. King was removed from the march by friends before he could suffer serious injury. When it was all over, Larry Payne youth was killed and sixty other people suffered injuries. The National Guard closed off the city.
During hurricane winds and driving rain, Martin Luther King gave his famous “I’ve Seen the Promised Land” speech to an ~3,000 people crammed inside Memphis’s Mason Temple on April 3, 1968. It was also there that he predicted his death to the gathered crowd . . . “I may not get there with you.” At 6:00PM on April 4th, Martin Luther King was shot to death at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
Going against the advice of Richard Lugar, Mayor of Indianapolis, not to go into the African American part of Indianapolis that night; then New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy delivered what I would call the eulogy for one of the greatest spiritual and political leaders of the US . . . Martin Luther King. He climbed atop a flat bed used for a stage to talk to 4,000 people gathered there, 4,000 mostly black Americans.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, I am only going to talk to you just for a minute or so this evening because I have some very sad news for all of you. I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight.”
An audible gasp was heard, followed by shouts of “No!” Kennedy paused for a moment, and then continued:
“Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort.” “In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black — considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible — you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization — black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred for one another.
Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love.
For those of you who are black and tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States; we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: ‘In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.’
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black. . . .
We’ve had difficult times in the past. We will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land.
Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago:’ to tame the savageness of man and to make gentle the life of the world.’
Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and four our people.”
Eight weeks later, Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.
For garbage and ignorance, two men of labor were crushed to death. For the dignity of the men who would haul garbage, for the dignity of African Americans, for the dignity of all of those living in poverty, and for those who would labor; Martin Luther King gave his life. For the dignity of all men and to unite America again, Robert F. Kennedy gave his life.
“All Labor Has Dignity”
1. http://www.miamiherald.com/multimedia/news/iamaman/timeline.html “I Am A Man”
http://www.aft.org/yourwork/tools4teachers/bhm/mlkpeech031868.cfm
yes, and we made some progress since then. both for blacks and for workers in general. now we are engaged… in what looks like a determined effort to put us all back in the condition of the garbage workers of memphis.
it’s easy to tell the people who are actively working toward this end. it is a little less easy to tell those who are merely fooled by those people… because people are easy to fool.
it is, sadly, also easy to tell how easily people who should be on the same side turn against each other bitterly for reasons that look me like pride, ego, and, of course, disagreements about who is fooled.
can’t say i know what to do about it… absent another FDR or MLK or even RFK… but we oughta think about it.
Is it true the family demanded $800,000+ for the use of a few quotes by the memorial foundation?
Second generation has been a disappointment to say the least.
1968 was quite a tumultuous year – hope we never repeat it.
The eulogy.
Here’s a ten minute review of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike on YouTube which includes, at the 4:50 mark, a minute twenty of MLK Jr.’s March 18 speech and, at the 7:40 mark, twenty seconds of his April 3, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.
Here’s an infrequently cited passage from King’s last speech:
>>>>>…We don’t have to argue with anybody. We don’t have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don’t need any bricks and bottles, we don’t need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, “God sent us by here, to say to you that you’re not treating his children right. And we’ve come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda–fair treatment, where God’s children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.”
And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy–what is the other bread?–Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart’s bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven’t been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.
But not only that, we’ve got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take you money out of the banks downtown and deposit you money in Tri-State Bank–we want a “bank-in” movement in Memphis. So go by the savings and loan association. I’m not asking you something that we don’t do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We’re just telling you to follow what we’re doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an “insurance-in.”
Now there are some practical things we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here….<<<<<
The eulogy.
Here’s a ten minute review of the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike on YouTube which includes, at the 4:50 mark, a minute twenty of MLK Jr.’s March 18 speech and, at the 7:40 mark, twenty seconds of his April 3, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech.
Here’s an infrequently cited passage from King’s last speech:
>>>>>…We don’t have to argue with anybody. We don’t have to curse and go around acting bad with our words. We don’t need any bricks and bottles, we don’t need any Molotov cocktails, we just need to go around to these stores, and to these massive industries in our country, and say, “God sent us by here, to say to you that you’re not treating his children right. And we’ve come by here to ask you to make the first item on your agenda–fair treatment, where God’s children are concerned. Now, if you are not prepared to do that, we do have an agenda that we must follow. And our agenda calls for withdrawing economic support from you.”
And so, as a result of this, we are asking you tonight, to go out and tell your neighbors not to buy Coca-Cola in Memphis. Go by and tell them not to buy Sealtest milk. Tell them not to buy–what is the other bread?–Wonder Bread. And what is the other bread company, Jesse? Tell them not to buy Hart’s bread. As Jesse Jackson has said, up to now, only the garbage men have been feeling pain; now we must kind of redistribute the pain. We are choosing these companies because they haven’t been fair in their hiring policies; and we are choosing them because they can begin the process of saying, they are going to support the needs and the rights of these men who are on strike. And then they can move on downtown and tell Mayor Loeb to do what is right.
But not only that, we’ve got to strengthen black institutions. I call upon you to take you money out of the banks downtown and deposit you money in Tri-State Bank–we want a “bank-in” movement in Memphis. So go by the savings and loan association. I’m not asking you something that we don’t do ourselves at SCLC. Judge Hooks and others will tell you that we have an account here in the savings and loan association from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We’re just telling you to follow what we’re doing. Put your money there. You have six or seven black insurance companies in Memphis. Take out your insurance there. We want to have an “insurance-in.”
Now there are some practical things we can do. We begin the process of building a greater economic base. And at the same time, we are putting pressure where it really hurts. I ask you to follow through here….<<<<<
CMike
words to live by.
not that it will occur to anyone that he is talking to them. or that they could do anything about it.
Thank you run and CMike. MLK fought, non-violently, against both racism and economic injustice. Unfortunately our leaders responded negatively on the second front. Since the 1970s, anti-union sentiment has steadily risen in polling results, unions have declined in membership and influence, the real minimum wage has declined, and real hourly wages for most laborers have stagnated or decreased. I think MLK would not be happy that people who hated him and his principles have had considerable success.
When I moved south of the Mason-Dixon Line in the 1970s, I discovered locals were encouraging shopping at one of the grocery store chains because it was anti-union. Then the same recommendations arose for Walmart as it moved into the region. This word-of-mouth campaigning is no different than what MLK recommended, but in the opposite direction and without overt, publicized leadership. It appears to work and it continues with no counter-campaigning.
pjr
when i lived in chicago and in california in the 50’s , the idea that “unions is bad” was quite common. i have to guess it came from the propaganda in the newspapers and a few stories about “bad” unions like the teamsters (at that time), and lots of stories about ridiculous work rules. even my family was pretty anti-union. thought they made it harder for the better workers to get ahead.
since i worked myself in real jobs i got a different point of view. not from what people said, but from what the bosses did, and what the workers did in response.
but that’s a hard story to tell when you don’t own a newspaper.
Dr King spoke out against the war machine especially the Voetnam version staring in 1965.
“A time comes when silence is betrayal.” That time has come for us in relation to Vietnam.”
“Over the past two years, as I have moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart, as I have called for radical departures from the destruction of Vietnam, many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path.”
Apr 1967.