The trouble in Memphis started at the end of January.
According to the Memphis History website:
“On January 30, 1968, 21 [Black] workers were sent home without pay because of the rain. When the rain let up an hour later, white employees were still on the clock and worked all day for pay. This caused a furor among the men and T. O. Jones [a former sanitation worker and president of the AFSCME Local] took up the issue with the new Directory of Public Works, Charles Blackburn.”
“…Two days later, the first day of February, two sanitation employees - Echol Cole, 35, and Robert Walker, 29 - were crushed to death by a malfunctioning garbage truck. They were inside the truck trying to escape a driving rain long enough to eat their lunch. Work rules in the Sanitation Department called for workers to clock out when it rained. Meanwhile the predominantly white supervisory and administrative staff were allowed to continue working for pay. Both of the dead men were relatively new to the job. Neither man had a life insurance policy."
A few days after this incident, on February 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous “Drum Major Instinct” sermon at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. In that speech, he said*:...
