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History > USA > Civil rights > 1968

 

Memphis sanitation strike

 

 

 

 

I Am a Man sanitation workers strike, Memphis, TN, 1968

Withers was born in 1922.

 

His work has been archived by the Library of Congress

and is slated to enter the permanent collection

of the Smithsonian Institution’s

National Museum of African American History and Culture,

in Washington, DC

 

Photograph: The Ernest C Withers Family Trust;

courtesy of Fahey/Klein Gallery, Los Angeles

 

Rock’n’roll and the civil rights struggle:

African American life in the south – in pictures

Ernest C Withers’ photographs take viewers to the record stores,

picket lines and proms of the American south

during the 1940s, 50s and 60s

G

Wed 9 Jun 2021    07.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/jun/09/
ernest-c-withers-civil-rights-struggle-in-pictures

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Tennessee National Guard fixed bayonets

on a march by Memphis sanitation workers and supporters.

1968.

 

Photograph: Bettmann Collection

Getty Images

 

A Look at the Heart-Wrenching Moments From Equal Rights Battles

By Evelyn Nieves

NYT

Dec. 14, 2017

https://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/
a-look-at-the-heart-wrenching-moments-from-equal-rights-battles/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How Dr. King Changed

a Sanitation Worker’s Life

Times Documentaries    NYT    April 4, 2018

 

 

 

 

How Dr. King Changed a Sanitation Worker’s Life

Video    Times Documentaries    NYT    April 4, 2018

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis in 1968

to march with sanitation workers

who were protesting low wages and poor working conditions.

Cleophus Smith marched with him. He’s still on the job.

YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHrfi__nGEY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 12, 1968 to April 16, 1968

 

1,300 black men

from the Memphis Department of Public Works

went on strike after a malfunctioning truck

crushed two garbage collectors to death.

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/15/
578176756/honoring-memphis-sanitation-workers-who-went-on-strike-in-1968

 

(...)

 

1,300 sanitation workers

who joined the 65-day strike,

which culminated

in a major civil rights

and labor union victory,

albeit at a tremendous cost

Dr. King was assassinated

while he was in Memphis

to rally behind the strikers’

cause.

 

The sanitation workers,

nearly all of them Black,

were protesting low pay,

poor working conditions

and demeaning treatment.

 

“Everybody called us ‘boy,’”

Mr. Nickleberry said

in a 2014 interview.

 

“The supervisors also

called us ‘boy.’

 

You’d tell them,

‘I ain’t no “boy.” I am a man.’

 

And they’d keep

calling you ‘boy.’”

 

Each day, Mr. Nickleberry

and the other strikers

marched silently

through downtown Memphis,

carrying signs that said,

“I AM A MAN.”

 

Though he was not well known

during the strike,

Mr. Nickleberry,

a thin, silver-haired,

disarmingly friendly man,

grew in prominence

over the past quarter-century

by speaking to youth groups,

labor unions, civil rights groups,

TV interviewers

and documentary filmmakers.

 

Memphis sanitation workers

in those years

used round 17-gallon plastic tubs

to haul garbage

from backyards to trucks

on the street.

 

Like his co-workers,

Mr. Nickleberry would fill his tub

with 30 or 40 pounds of garbage

and carry it on his back,

shoulders or head.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/
us/elmore-nickleberry-dead.html

 

 

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/
memphis-sanitation-workers-strike

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/
us/elmore-nickleberry-dead.html

 

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/jun/09/
ernest-c-withers-civil-rights-struggle-in-pictures

 

https://www.npr.org/2018/01/15/
578176756/honoring-memphis-sanitation-workers-who-went-on-strike-in-1968

 

 

 

 

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/
posner-dream.html
- 1998

 

 

 

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/17/
archives/sanitation-strike-in-memphis-ends-employes-win-recognition-of-union.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1968/03/18/
archives/memphis-is-beset-by-racial-tension-garbage-strike-has-become-a.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1968/02/25/
archives/leaders-of-strike-curbed-in-memphis.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1968/02/17/
archives/naacp-assails-memphis-on-strike.html

 

https://www.nytimes.com/1968/02/13/
archives/a-garbage-strike-plagues-memphis.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related > Anglonautes > History > America, USA

 

Martin Luther King Jr.    1929 - 4 April 1968

 

 

20th century > USA > Civil rights > Black power

 

 

20th century > USA > Civil rights

 

 

17th, 18th, 19th, 20th century

English America, America, USA

Racism, Slavery,

Abolition, Civil war,

Abraham Lincoln

 

 

17th, 18th, 19th century

English America, America, USA

 

 

 

 

 

Related > Anglonautes > History > UK

 

United Kingdom > Slavery

 

 

 

 

 

Related > Anglonautes > Vocapedia

 

slavery, eugenics,

race relations,

racial divide, racism,

segregation, civil rights,

apartheid

 

 

economy > jobs > sanitation workers

 

 

jobs > unions > strikes

 

 

 

 

 

Anglonautes > Arts > Photographers >

20th century > USA > Civil rights

 

Jeffrey Henson Scales

 

 

Doy Gorton

 

 

Danny Lyon

 

 

Doris Derby    1939-2022

 

 

Steve Schapiro    1934-2022

 

 

Fred Baldwin    1929-2021

 

 

Matt Herron    1931-2020

 

 

Don Hogan Charles    1938-2017

 

 

Robert Adelman    1930-2016

 

 

Ernest C. Withers    1922-2007

 

 

Leonard Freed    1929-2006

 

 

Gordon Parks    1912-2006

 

 

James "Spider" Martin    1939-2003

 

 

Grey Villet    1927-2000

 

 

Ed Clark    1911-2000

 

 

Ralph Waldo Ellison    1913-1994

 

 

Robert W. Kelley    1920-1991

 

 

Weegee    1899-1968

 

 

 

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