Tragic Accident Sparks Sanitation Strike

The strike had a long fuse. Black sanitation workers tried to organize in 1963, and 33 were fired right after attending an organizing meeting. Local 1733 of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees formed in November 1964, yet the city would not recognize it. Two other men had died in a garbage compactor that year, and the city did not replace the defective equipment. When the strikers did walk out in 1968, they gathered each noon and marched downtown from Clayborn Temple. The strike ended on April 16 with union recognition.

What the plaque says

Tragic Accident Sparks Sanitation Strike Side 1: On February 1, 1968, sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker took shelter from the rain inside their truck's garbage barrel because they had no raincoats. One block south of here, at the corner of Colonial and Verne, the compacting motor shorted, and the two men were crushed to death. On the same day, due to weather, 22 black sewer workers were sent home without pay while their white supervisors were retained for the day with pay. Side 2: On February 12, more than 1100 black sanitation workers began a strike for job safety, better wages and benefits, and union recognition. The deaths of Cole and Walker were key factors contributing to the sanitation workers' strike. Civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave three separate speeches in support of the strikers and their cause, the last coming on April 3. The following day, Dr. King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Stax Museum of American Soul Music — 7.4 mi
  A rebuilt Stax studio on the site of the old Capitol Theatre, with a replica of the sloped-floor Studio A, Isaac Hayes's Cadillac and the story of an integrated soul label.
• Elmwood Cemetery — 7.4 mi
  Memphis's oldest active cemetery, a rural garden cemetery of about 1,500 trees opened in 1852, with Black civic leaders, yellow fever victims and the city's whole history in its lots.
• Graceland — 7.6 mi
  Elvis Presley's 1939 limestone house in Whitehaven, bought in 1957 and opened as a ticketed museum in 1982, with his grave in the Meditation Garden and a commercial visitor campus around it.
• Sun Studio — 8.2 mi
  The small Union Avenue room where Sam Phillips recorded Rocket 88, Howlin' Wolf, Elvis Presley and the Million Dollar Quartet, now a National Historic Landmark.

More markers nearby

• St. Mary's Episcopal School — 2.6 mi
• The University of Memphis — 3.0 mi
• Christian Brothers High School — 3.5 mi
• Mt. Moriah Baptist Church — 4.2 mi