City Council Meeting - February 27

The City Council agreed to give Jerry Wurf thirty minutes at its regular meeting on Tuesday, February 27, to present the views of the union and the purposes of the strike. Even as they sought to do well, however, insensitivity and, perhaps, fear caused the Council to wound the feelings of Negro citizens.

Mr. Wurf was scheduled to appear at 3:30 p.m. Strikers at the noon rally were urged to fill the Council chamber. The daily march from Clayborn Temple was timed to arrive at city hall just before the council session began at 2:30. Police had ruled that the public seating capacity of 407 would not be exceeded, stating that fire laws prohibited standing in the aisles. But strike leaders wanted a show of strength and determination and urged the men to fill the lobby outside the chamber. Loudspeakers were arranged so that persons in the lobby could hear the proceedings.

Shortly before 2:30 the doors of the chamber were opened and people started filing through the two entrances. Four to six policemen were stationed at each, counting the people going in, murmuring, "If you will go in two by two, we would appreciate it." Neat cardboard signs scotchtaped to the marble wall beside each door stated, "Council Chamber - Public Seating Capacity 407."

The first hour of the session was taken up with bone-dry business having to do with licensing and zoning. Then Council Chairman Downing Pryor observed that it was time for Mr. Wurf's presentation and he had received word Wurf was delayed, so there would be a recess until he arrived.

Pryor did not tell the crowd that Wurf, along with other union officials, had been cited for contempt and summoned to Chancery Court. The summons had come, Wurf said later, just as he arrived at city hall for the Council meeting. Aware that he was to appear in court at precisely 3:30, he had asked Council Chairman Pryor if it would be possible for him to make his presentation earlier in the meeting. Pryor told him the agenda of the Council was fixed by law, but assured him that the Council would recess and stay in session until he completed his business at Chancery Court -- unless, of course, he was sent to jail for ten days. (At the mass meeting that night, telling the crowd the Council should be credited with decency about this matter, Wurf said when two members of the Council made him that promise, the attorney for the city told them they might be in contempt of court.)

When the recess of the council meeting was announced, people began milling around. After an hour of growing restlessness, Baxton Bryant, with others, persuaded Chairman Pryor that it would relieve tension if some of the ministers were allowed to speak while the audience was waiting for Wurf. Pryor called the meeting back to order and nervously laid down the rules. Each speaker would be limited to five minutes, a standing rule, he said, and not new for the occasion. If Wurf arrived, the person then speaking would be allowed to finish, then Wurf would speak. If he had not arrived after thirty minutes, the council would recess again and wait for him.

With only five minutes apiece, the preachers wasted no time on amenities. The clerks sat round-eyed, spellbound, giving the impression that they had never heard anyone address the Memphis City Council in such tones before -- certainly not Negroes.

The Reverend S. B. Kyles said that all the policemen at the door and the five or six "emergency cars" outside made him think he was in Russia. He resented the thirty-minute time limit -- "I'll tell you, we have all night!" He rebuked spokesmen for the ministers for agreeing to speak to the Council on the Council's terms: "We aim to talk to you on our terms."

"If you don't settle it here," he told them, "it is going to be settled, anyway. You may have to settle it down where we are."

The Reverend James Lawson, chairman for the group of ministers, said he was so flustered and angry that he hardly knew how to begin to express himself. Negroes, he said, are still the victims of two "sticks": (1) the police -- "those symbols of repression" guarding the door and (2) rigid structure. "If you don't beat us over the head with a night stick, you hit us over the head with an agenda!"

"Some of us want to settle this in this council," he told them, "but if we can't, we may just go back to our studies, perhaps just go fishing, and let whatever happens happen! Just forget it! This is not a threat, because Memphis is a part of this country, and this country is in turmoil, whether we like it or not!"

It was during Lawson's speech that Wurf arrived. During the preachers' speeches, the police had moved along the sides of the chamber and stood there, watching. One had a two-way radio, another a bullhorn.

"I planned to come here to make a humble statement," Wurf began. "Posturing does more harm than good. In the interim some of us have been arrested . . . and now it is a temptation to try to prove one's manhood. But I am going to forego that and simply state our goals."

He reviewed the objectives of the strike and negotiations with Mayor Loeb. "The mayor has made much of the fact that he will not sign a contract," Wurf told them. "It has become a posture which is more important to him than the substance of the issue." He concluded with the suggestion that the Council should not abandon its responsibility entirely to the city's chief executive. The meeting was adjourned.