Video: Memphis Comes to Washington

by Amy Hendrick  |  May 02, 2011

The 1,300 sanitation workers who participated in the historic 1968 strike in Memphis, Tennessee — members of AFSCME Local 1733 — were enshrined into the U.S. Department of Labor's "Labor Hall of Fame" on April 29, 2011. Eight of the original strikers attended the induction ceremony before a full house in the Grand Hall of the Department of Labor in Washington, D.C. and connected their struggle to the attacks that continue to be waged against workers today.

Inductees included Local 1733 members Ben Jones, Baxter Leach, Herbert Parson, Cleophus Smith, Alvin Turner, Ozell Ueal, Russell Walton, and Joe Warren.