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The Memphis Sanitation Strike
Memphis's sanitation workers, who were predominantly African Americans, were poorly paid and ill-treated. For years, they complained about dangerously decrepit equipment and squalid working conditions. The city refused to recognized their union.
On Feb. 1, 1968, two workers seeking shelter in the back of a garbage truck from a bad storm were crushed to death when the compactor's safety switch malfunctioned. Their gruesome deaths galvanized more than 1,000 sanitation workers to go on strike.
As Mayor Henry Loeb scrambled to hire replacement workers, 10,000 tons of trash piled up on the streets of Memphis. |