Forty Years Since King: Labor Rights Are Human Rights

Forty Years Since King: Labor Rights Are Human Rights: ...As crew chief, Willie Crain drove the loaded garbage packer along Colonial Street, he heard the hydraulic ram go into action, apparently set off by an electrical malfunction. He pulled the truck over to the curb immediately but the ram was already jamming Cole and Walker back into the compactor.

The men were crushed like so much garbage.

They were black like nearly everyone else working in sanitation—except the white bosses. Memphis assigned hauling garbage to blacks only and relied on cheap wages and the dictatorial rule of white supervisors to win its awards as one of the nation’s cleanest cities.

These avoidable deaths rubbed raw long-existing frustrations. The sanitation workers had no rights and could do nothing about it.

But on Feb. 12, Lincoln's birthday, they did something about it. Nearly 1,300 black men in the Memphis Department of Public Works, giving no notice to anyone, went on strike. For nearly two months, these men marched every day. They endured beatings, arrests and tremendous economic hardship in the dead of winter. With the help of Martin Luther King Jr., they eventually won.