memphis sanitation strike
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In Black Memphis, Beale Street Can Talk
Beale Street can talk. She’s country, loud and a bit ghetto. She’s bold like the blackness she exudes throughout the city. She has a thick tongue and a sour drawl. She uses Lisa Akbari’s shampoo and the black tube of Ampro gel to slick down her edges. She refuses to wear a slip when she…
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Episode 7: Police Officers Terrorize Black Memphis During MLK’s Final March
After speaking to a rapt crowd on March 18, 1968, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. returned to Memphis, Tenn., as promised, to march in solidarity with Memphis sanitation strikers. The date was March 28, 1968—50 years ago today—King’s first and only march in Memphis and the last march of his all-too-brief life. He would…
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Episode 6: The Memphis Sanitation Strike From the Wives’ Perspective
During the 1968 Memphis, Tenn., sanitation strike, there were no signs that read “I am a woman” or “I am a wife” or “I am a mother.” The wives of sanitation strikers were given no awards for their tireless contributions to the struggle, but they should have been. Sanitation strikers consulted with their wives before…
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Episode 4: Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired: Memphis Sanitation Workers Go on Strike
As the families of Echol Cole and Robert Walker struggled to put their loved ones to rest, a different kind of storm was brewing in Memphis, Tenn.—and Feb. 12, 1968, was a tipping point. Cole and Walker had only been dead for about two weeks, having been crushed to death by a faulty, outdated garbage…