Faith Leaders Mark 50th Anniversary of Memphis Sanitation Workers’ Deaths

The names Echol Cole and Robert Walker are far less familiar than the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

But it was the labor action over harsh working conditions triggered by the deaths of the two African-American sanitation workers that prompted the civil rights leader to travel to Memphis, Tenn., where he was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

On Thursday (Feb. 1), faith leaders joined political and labor officials to mark the anniversary of the 1968 deaths of Cole and Walker, who both had taken cover from a rainstorm inside their garbage truck when its compactor malfunctioned and they were crushed.

The city did not give their families enough money to cover their funeral expenses. Their deaths led to a protest in which local strikers from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees carried “I Am a Man” signs.

King joined their cause, visiting the city twice for it, and commended the many clergy who had become involved in it when he preached his “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” sermon on April 3, 1968, which would be his last.

Thursday’s observance is part of the “I Am 2018” campaign, in which leaders of the Church of God in Christ, the nation’s largest black Pentecostal denomination, and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees aim to draw attention to continuing needs for economic and racial…