Too Far to Turn Around
It has been 30 years since AFSCME sanitation workers went on strike for dignity and respect — and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. lost his life supporting their struggle.
MEMPHIS
Malcolm Pryor has been marching on April 4 every year for 30 years."You have to remind people: We are not free yet," says Pryor. "As long as I march, Dr. King’s soul is still rejoicing that people are still trying."
Pryor, 59, is a sanitation worker for the city of Memphis and a member of AFSCME Local 1733. In 1968, he and 1,300 other African-American sanitation workers went on strike against the city to gain recognition for their union, holding up signs that read simply, "I Am A Man." Pryor marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when the civil rights leader came to Memphis to support that strike. He tells his grandchildren how King was slain here on April 4, 1968.
"I try to teach my grandchildren about these things," explains Pryor. "Dr. King thought enough to come here, to give his life for the sanitation worker."
Every year, members and supporters of Local 1733 march to honor King and the sanitation workers like Pryor who went on strike in 1968.
NO GETTING TIRED. It has been 30 years for these men who made their living running behind a truck, who weren’t allowed to get tired on the job. This year, the route for the march was substantially longer than usual and these men were allowed to get tired: The local had hired a bus so they could travel to the rally in cushioned seats.
Robert Beasley, 73, had his wheelchair handed into the bus at the beginning of the route and handed out at the end.
"I’ve marched every year," he says. "I think it’s something we need to carry on, to keep the dream alive."
The first recording secretary of Local 1733, Beasley remembers when he and his fellow sanitation workers decided to go on strike. Memphis was a segregated city then. African Americans had separate drinking fountains, separate bathrooms. They had to sit in the back of the bus. Sanitation workers worked hard jobs for little pay and no respect.
"We were called ‘walking buzzards’ by the public," Beasley recalls. "We felt we should be treated like human beings. We had the right to be recognized by the city of Memphis. So we decided we would go on strike, change some of that."
Silas McNulty, 64, says, "It was 10 hours a day in sleet, snow. There wasn’t any such thing as getting tired or lunch breaks."
RIGHT AND WRONG. When the sanitation workers went on strike, churches and businesses in the African-American community rallied behind them. AFSCME International sent William Lucy and others down to represent the national union.
At this recent rally, Lucy — now International secretary-treasurer of AFSCME — paid tribute to the strikers as "men who never went to Harvard or Yale, but who knew more about right and wrong than any lawyer."
But being right didn’t make the strike any easier.
McNulty remembers being maced during the strikers’ daily walk from their headquarters at Clayborn Temple to City Hall: "It was scary. I could barely breathe, couldn’t see for a few days. I didn’t think about quitting, though. We’d come too far to turn around."
When the strikers heard that King was coming to stand with them, they were amazed.
Taylor Rogers, 72, former president of Local 1733, explains, "We were on the bottom of the ladder and he dropped everything to come in for us."
King inspired the strikers at the Clayborn Temple, uttering his famous "I’ve been to the mountaintop" speech. The next day, he was assassinated.
"It was like someone had shocked me," Pryor recalls. Then he said, "I believe God appointed Dr. King to do a task — to open America’s eyes to all people — and after he had completed it, God took him home."
Soon afterward, 64 days after the workers began their strike, the city agreed to recognize the union.
McNulty, still working as a sanitation worker, has 27 grandchildren. His job pays a decent wage and includes benefits. The city recognizes his union. He can sit where he wants on the bus. "I tell [my grandchildren] how good it is to work out there now. They think I’m a hero. I think I’m a hero. I tell them what a wonderful man Dr. King was, the most wonderful I ever heard speak."
By Alison S. Lebwohl
