Failure and Frustration

In a special report on the Memphis sanitation strike, issued March 22, the Southern Regional Council observed that those in positions of power "never seemed to grasp the reality of the situation, its danger, or its promise . . . . Only when the tragedy of violence occurs, the situation seemed to say, could . . . governments act, and the record has been all too clear that harshness and repression, weaponry and killing, have been most often their answer." The report warned of "tragedy waiting in the wings."

The tragedy came on Thursday, March 28.

A mass march had been scheduled, to be led by Dr. Martin Luther King. On March 18, he had addressed 15,000 people in Memphis' Mason Temple. The big march had been slated for March 22, but a freak 16-inch snowfall the night before forced postponement.

Non-binding mediation sessions started on the twenty-third and ended in failure on the twenty-seventh. They had begun badly when an attorney representing the city expressed at the opening session his discomfort as a lawyer and "arm of the court," at negotiating about an "illegal" strike with strike leaders who were under injunction. (The claim of illegality was not based on state law, but on an obiter dictum in a state supreme court decision.) The union representatives walked out after three meetings, charging that representatives of the city "said they . . . were not authorized to agree on any item -- but only to discuss issues." City representatives countered that the union team would not discuss other issues until the union was recognized as sole bargaining agent. The union also charged that the city was violating the mediation rule against disclosure of information on negotiations.

Earlier on that forty-third day of the strike, Mayor Loeb had told the Jackson Avenue Lions Club he would not budge in his opposition to a written contract with the union and a dues check-off. "The strike is illegal," he said, "and you can't deal with illegality."