|
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His work has been archived by the Library of Congress and is slated to enter the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and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/
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/
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/
(...)
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/
https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2021/jun/09/
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/15/
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/
https://www.nytimes.com/1968/04/17/
https://www.nytimes.com/1968/03/18/
https://www.nytimes.com/1968/02/25/
https://www.nytimes.com/1968/02/17/
https://www.nytimes.com/1968/02/13/
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
Related > Anglonautes > History > UK
Related > Anglonautes > Vocapedia
economy > jobs > sanitation workers
Anglonautes > Arts > Photographers > 20th century > USA > Civil rights
James "Spider" Martin 1939-2003
|
|