mlk50
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Episode 3: ‘I Know Hard Work’: Memphis Sanitation Strikers on Childhoods Sharecropping in the Jim Crow South
Sharecropping in the United States was slavery by another name, and many of the 1968 Memphis, Tenn., sanitation strikers were well acquainted with it. After the Reconstruction Era ended in 1877, Jim Crow laws intended to maintain white supremacy through violence, intimidation and segregation, spread across the Southern states—and some Northern states, too (pdf). Even…
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Episode 2: The Tragic Deaths of Robert Walker and Echol Cole Sparked 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike
Robert Walker, 30, and Echol Cole, 36, woke up on Thursday, Feb. 1, 1968, and went to work for the Memphis (Tenn.) Sanitation Department. They left their families for a long day of collecting garbage with the full expectation of returning home to them. Instead, as their shifts were about to end and heavy rain…
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Cory Booker Looked Poised for 2020 as He and San Juan, Puerto Rico, Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz Were Honored by the King Center in Atlanta
Oprah Winfrey may rule out a 2020 run to end President Donald Trump’s reign of terror over this country, but Cory Booker might not. In Atlanta Saturday, the U.S. senator from New Jersey was a thunderous presence at the King Center’s annual Salute to Greatness Awards Gala, where he was the main honoree. Introduced by…
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Watch: Is MLK’s Legacy Under Attack?
In November, President Donald Trump’s administration released declassified FBI documents on President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. But the release also included a batch of Martin Luther King Jr. documents filled with allegations of “abnormal” sexual behavior and of being a “slow thinker” and a “Marxist” (pdf). The Root spoke with Clayborne Carson, the Martin Luther…
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Dressing Coretta: We Honor the Woman Who Helped Mold a Movement as Costume Designer Ruth E. Carter Revisits Selma
In the 50th year since his assassination in 1968, much has and will be said about Martin Luther King Jr., the civil rights leader and icon whose legacy of nonviolent resistance inspired the world—while compelling some to distort and dilute his message of activism. But Coretta Scott King, the great woman consistently behind and beside…
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Episode 1: Our Video Series Shares Never-Been-Told Stories of the Memphis Sanitation Workers
In Memphis, Tenn., 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers braved the bitter cold to engage in a revolutionary 65-day action to defend their right to personhood. These men struggled against the noose of white supremacy to proclaim their dignity. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, armed with picket signs and perseverance, determined to declare to the world, “I…