Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign

by Michael K. Honey

"The definitive appreciation of the Memphis garbage strike, one of the pivotal human-rights moments in late twentieth-century America."—David Levering Lewis



Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic "plantation mentality" embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a months-long public-employee strike that would shake the nation. With novelistic drama and rich scholarly detail, this "first-rate chronicle" (Seattle Times) relates the riveting story of the 1968 strike that shook Memphis—and claimed Martin Luther King's life. 16 pages of illustrations.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Labor, Race, African American, Biography, Politics

640 pages, Paperback

First published January 15, 2007

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a superb book. This tells the story of the 65 day strike of black sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968, and the events leading up to the assassination of Martin Luther King. The book is partly oral history in that he did many interviews, including with various workers, and what their victory in the strike meant for them. He gives a lot of the info about COINTELPRO and the campaign of the FBI and J. Edgar Hoover to "destroy" King. The book follows King's life, provides a wealth of detail about the black freedom movement of that era, such as differences about strategy & organizing, such as criticisms of King parachuting in to lead struggles. The book also does a good job of describing the humility of King and his genius for inspiring words...and also makes the important point that the movement was not just about "civil rights" but was a movement for social and economic justice. The strike was basically a spontaneous rebellion in the aftermath of two workers being killed in a garbage compactor. The poverty, paternalism and racism and terrible conditions they had to endure finally exhausted their patience. The union started out 8 years previous as an independent union and was a "non-majority union" that had only 30 paid up members at the time of the strike by 1,300 sanitation department workers. Once the union had affiliated to AFSCME, which had just been taken over at the national level by a reform leadership led by left-social-democrat Jerry Wurf, they were forced to back it to the end because they saw it as the key to spark further public sector unionism, especially in the south...which it did.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought the last third of this book was amazing, and made it worth slogging through the previous 350 pages. Honey recounts the 1968 memphis sanitation workers' strike day by day. While the early information is interesting, there was way too much of it.

The book came alive as the strike drags on, national organizations and leaders become involved, and big questions of movement strategy come into the center. The last third of the book is a brilliant exploration of the historical context of the strike (widespread riots in poor black communities around the country, the vietnam war, etc.) and how those events and related debates were playing out in Memphis.

[David Bates · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Going Down Jericho Road Michael Honey explores the 1968 sanitation workers strike which brought Martin Luther King to Memphis and his April 4th assassination at the Lorraine Motel. Drawing on a mix of archived materials, secondary scholarship, and oral interviews, Honey reconstructs the volatile race and class issues which erupted into violent confrontation in the streets of the Bluff City and seeks to resurrect a public understanding of Dr. King as the fiery social democrat who demanded the radical redistribution of both political and economic power within America.

Honey traces the history of race and the working class in Memphis, at the head of the Mississippi delta, from the time of Reconstruction through the Populist campaigns of the 1890s, Jim Crow and CIO organizing drives of the 1930s and ‘40s. His main concern is to situate his central narrative within the construct of the Long Civil Rights Movement thesis, and he accordingly carefully follows the connections between the limited success of unionization in the 1940s and relative large and activist black middle class in Memphis at the time of the strike. After setbacks in the 1950s when “the Cold War’s crushing assaults undercut organizing and uncoupled unions from the civil rights struggle,” and the introduction of mechanization to cotton agriculture undercut employment, he recounts the struggle of the beleaguered city sanitation workers to organize for improved conditions and pay in the 1960s, against the opposition of the white municipal authorities.

The death of two sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, due to the malfunctioning hydraulic ram on an outdated garbage truck on February 1, 1968 was the spark that touched off a wildfire of protest and violence in Memphis. Efforts by workers to negotiate official recognition of a Sanitation Workers Union affiliated with the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) were met with intransigence by the newly elected Mayor Henry Loeb, ending in deadlock and a strike. As February turned to March the stakes of the conflict rapidly escalated into a nationally significant symbolic fight over racial caste. As protests met with police brutality the local NAACP and the SCLC formed an uneasy alliance in support of the strikers.

King’s ability to execute his planned second march in a city where the youth increasingly turned away from non-violence and the police were ready to seize on any excuse remains an unresolved question mark. The broader question of our ability to peacefully cut the Gordian Knot of race and class hangs heavy on Honey’s work. As he says, “this story is . . . taking us not to the reassuring civil rights legislative victories of 1964 and 1965 but to the hard, unresolved issues of racism and poverty that continue to haunt us in the present.” Indeed, Honey’s devotion to the cause of organized labor and attention to its connections with the Civil Rights Movement mark him as an advocate of the Long Civil Rights Movement thesis. Yet the black-labor-left coalition posited by Jacqueline Dowd Hall is elusive in the history of Memphis, seeming to manifest to a limited extent in CIO union organizing, yet never a durable and coherent force. For Honey, such a coalition is perhaps something that should have been, that Martin Luther King himself was trying to assemble in his final days but cut short when “we lost the one person in the Movement (as we called it) who could unite a broad range of Americans in favor of racial and economic justice and peace.”

[Brandon Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book, and a wonderful look into the sanitation strike and the lead up to Dr. King’s last days. My only complaint is that there are so many characters and at times it gets a little bogged down in their histories and contributions. I would give it 4.5 if I could.

[John Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great account of the Memphis Sanitation Workers strike and what was ultimately the last campaign for Martin Luther King.
The book is focused in Memphis and provides an almost journalistic account of what caused the strike and how events developed and ultimately the role King played on his arrival.
The author, Michael Honey, does a great job at portraying the full range of characters in both their attributes and faults and specifically how their characters perpetuated and exacerbated the strike.
Specifically he addresses the conflict developing within the Movement that oppsed non violence in favor of direct action, armed resistance. This is the fault line that ran through all Movement resistance in the 1960s. Going down Jericho Road shows this conflict very clearly and it is quite interesting.
Unfortunately, the book is presently very timely, as the fight for basic human rights still exists.

[Doug Page · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Memphis, in May, 1917, Ell Parsons, a black youth falsely accused of raping a white girl, was burned at the stake, in front of 5000 spectators, including many school children excused from class to witness the event. This book chronicles the shameful history of Memphis, in many ways the puss of America's racial boil, right up to the assassination of Martin Luther King, which the swarms of police, sheriffs, FBI, and military intelligence agents patrolling downtown that evening somehow let slip past them.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, if slightly too dense and detailed, look at the Memphis Sanitation workers' strike, and the intersection of civil rights and labor.

[Lukas Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Privileged groups seldom, if ever, give up their privileges voluntarily, and they never do it without resistance. . .Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor.”

[Aaron Jerviss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frequently disturbing but absolutely essential reading. Honey does a brilliant job of describing both the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike and its long background. The book, however, also excels at describing the tension-filled relationship between the labor movement and civil rights movement, and how tricky coalition-building between the two forces could be. I also appreciated the portrait of Dr. King late in his life. While Honey obviously has great respect for King, this account never turns into hagiography. King is presented as human and accessible, a leader still capable of stirring the masses into action yet criticized by some blacks as irrelevant and vilified by much of white America as a troublemaker. For me, this book shattered the "King lost his relevancy after 1965" narrative. King was never more timely than when he condemned Vietnam and economic inequalities (and masterfully combined the two to indict America for its racism). A worthy complement to Garrow's Bearing the Cross as exemplary King scholarship.

[Tessa Klettl-Keller · Rating 4 out of 5]

An emotionally difficult read, but very well worth it to learn the important context of our new home. It is truly heartbreaking to close this book, look around at the city as it is today, 55 years later, and see how little has fundamentally changed after the efforts in 1968. Greed, God, and guns indeed.

[Heath · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never write Goodreads reivews (probably because of my tendency to be verbose, as this review demonstrates), but I had to make an exception for this book.

I wonder: how many people realize that Martin Luther King Jr. was killed while assisting desperately poor sanitation workers to organize a union? That the reason he was in Memphis—against the will of his closet advisors, no less—was to provide much needed support to the sanitation workers who were on strike for better wages, union recognition, and basic human dignity? I don't think I truly grasped this fact until I started working for a labor union. And I'd bet most people are similarly uninformed about King's commitment to economic justice.

King's support for the Memphis sanitation strike forms the basis of Honey's wide-ranging historical account of the 64-day strike undertaken by the sanitation workers in 1968. It is an incredibly powerful and moving story, and should be required reading for anyone who works in the labor movement or on behalf of civil rights.

From start to finish, it is simply outstanding. Honey manages to explore every facet of the strike in about 500 pages: the plight of the sanitation workers, who "worked full time hours for part time wages"; the vital leadership role played by the black Memphis clergy and women from the community; the ambivalence of the white religious community; the incredibly biased newspaper coverage and the disastrous consequences for race relations in Memphis as a result; the intransigence of Mayor Henry Loeb and the white conservative political establishment; the struggle between Black Power activists and the nonviolent-based leadership of the strike over tactics and strategy; and King's struggle to build a movement of poor people, only briefly realized in Memphis. And that's not even an exhaustive list. Yet somehow, in spite of all this detail, it still reads quickly. It's an amazing piece of historical writing.

The book also does great work of giving voice to community members (both black and white) and rank and file sanitation workers, as well as the union organizers, civil rights leaders and politicians involved. By quoting from people at all levels of the entire community, you get a full picture of what it felt like to live in Memphis during the strike.

Contrary to the title, only a third of the book is focused on King. Yet while only a third is devoted King, much like Michael Eric Dyson's, I May Not Get There With You (which also lifted it's title from King's last speech on April 3), Honey succeeds in painting a nuanced and accurate portrait that goes beyond the usual "I Have a Dream" platitudes that are regularly ascribed to King. For King's politics were radical, and his critique of American society was not limited to racism, but extended to militarism, imperialism, and capitalism, for which he was excoriated by the mainstream media during the last few years of his life (a fact which was quietly swept under the rug after his death). He understood how capitalism exploited the poor and left many people "out of the sunlight of opportunity." He understood how capitalism left large swaths of the population locked into poverty. This is why during the last few years of his life, after the successes of the civil rights movement, he began to move away from a civil rights framework and towards an economic justice framework (i.e. the Poor People's Campaign).

As Honey makes clear, it's not surprising then that King's political trajectory led him to Memphis, because to him, the strike represented exactly what he wanted to achieve with the Poor People's Campaign; the poor rising up to achieve economic justice through aggressive and confrontational nonviolent action. King of course, did his part to escalate the fight. My favorite part of the book is chapter 13, which describes King's March 18 speech in Memphis, his first in support of the sanitation workers. At the end of the speech, almost on a whim, he called for a general strike of all black workers in Memphis, setting off enthusiastic approval (Honey calls it pandemonium) from the 25,000 people in the audience. I can only imagine what it must have been like to be at that speech...it gives me goosebumps.

Perhaps the most important lesson of the book (for me at least) is that King saw in the Memphis strike an example of the Labor-Civil Rights coalition that he struggled for years to create, and that it was only this political alliance that could achieve justice for the working class and the poor. Sadly, the American labor movement has, in many ways, failed to keep up it's end of the bargain (Jericho Road does not tip toe around the AFL-CIO's refusal in the past to confront racism and imperialism), and the civil rights community, as a result, has in some ways, become justifiably disillusioned with Labor. Therefore, we still have a long way to go towards realizing the grand coalition of labor and civil rights that King knew was necessary to bring about "economic justice and the brotherhood of man." This story shows that such an alliance is possible.

I could go on, but this review cannot do justice to Honey's book or the important story it tells. Just go out and read it.

[Brandon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A comprehensive chronicle of MLK's final campaign, promoting the disenfranchised sanitation workers of Memphis in early 1968. Of course the story ends in tragedy for MLK, but recognition of basic worker's rights were finally won. "I Am A Man!"

[Abbie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be required reading for anyone who claims to honor the Civil Rights movement but disparages BLM.

[Jack Harlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hands down one of the finest books I’ve read. An essential read on American history, King, union activism, and civil rights.

[Seth J. Vogelman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic story of class struggle and racism in the American South. At times a bit heavy but nevertheless engaging profile of the world MLK sought to change in the Poor People's Campaign.

[Eric Cutler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hot Labor Summer Read #4

[RLD · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book.
I found the chapter on the anatomy of the riot especially enlightening.

[Beverly Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

History books don't often make me cry, but going through the struggle of the Memphis sanitation workers to the creation of a letter of agreement was long, hard, and costly. Michael K. Honey does a masterful job of introducing the players -- from T. O. Jones, the sanitation worker who for eight years tried to organize his colleagues to Martin Luther King who tried to link labor and civil rights by lending his hand to the campaign. Honey provides a comprehensive look at the strike issues: how the local papers covered the strike or didn't, how that lack of coverage prevented any kind of communication between the black and the white community, and how that lack of coverage prevented whites from developing any kind of empathy for the miserable, below-poverty wages the sanitation workers earned. He draws that distinction so well that when a women at the end of the book says "I just can't stand feeding lazy people...I have been poor all my life, and I have had to work. Why can't they work and take care of their own families and own problems as I have done?" I would have slapped had I been near enough. The sanitation workers worked 12 and 15 hours daily at 8-hour wages. On rainy days they were sent home with only two hours of pay, but whites worked the whole day and earned their own salary. A man who had been a sanitation worker for 15 years reported that he only earned five cents above minimum wage. Such details, according to Honey, were not reported in the press. Had they been, perhaps that woman would not have made such a remark and further perhaps she would have been sympathetic to the strikers.

Honey also sheds light on the social justice that King sought in his Poor People's campaign and his efforts at trying to convince Americans that social justice is linked to one's ability to earn a living -- a revolutionary concept. In every way, this is a great book that reads well too!

[Richard Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

FYI - 500 pages of text and about 100 pages of notes/annotation.

About 450 pages of GDJR's text is devoted primarily to the three months prior to Martin Luther King, Jr's assassination, the balance covers the two weeks from the assassination to the signing of the agreement between the sanitation workers and the city. Though the balance makes sense considering the magnitude of the pre versus post assassination events, it still left me wanting more insight into the impact the agreement had on the workers. So look for something else if you are interested in how the sanitation workers or city fared after the signing or anything specific about James Earl Ray or any post event commentary from any key figure.

Nevertheless, the book is a fascinating read about the people, the events, the times, the maneuvering and the politicking that left two men dead, a movement in jeopardy and a city and nation in despair. A bit heavy on the names and details of marches and the many many meetings but the narrative keeps moving you forward.

[Bap · Rating 4 out of 5]

40 years ago this month, MLK was murdered in Memphis where he was involved in a campaign to help Memphis sanitation workers gain recognition for AFSME. This is the story of this organizing campaign, the strike, and the mobilization of labor, black churces and workers against bitter opposition from a mayor who was an episcopalian convert from judaism who equated unions with communism and was determined to break the union. The city recognized the union only after the death of MLK. As dozens of cities went up in flames in the aftermath of the assisination, Memphis refrained from furhter violence.

This book will make you think differently of MLK and will make you regret his untimely death.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr. King has become an American icon and it is easy to forget how difficult his life was, especially in the last years when he had broadened his social justice work to emphasize economic justice for the poor and had spoken out against the war in Vietnam, thus alienating many of his establishment supporters. Perhaps the worst thing that can happen to true revolutionary like MLK (and he was, nonviolence is still the most radical of all tactics for change) is respectability.

This book is an excellent reminder of who the man was and what his struggles were.

It is also an reminder of the appalling depths of race hatred in the South that white Southerners harbored against African-Americans and a useful antidote to those who proclaim that we live in a post-racial time.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm really looking forward to the study group on this book.

Beginning this book, I thought I knew what the Memphis strike was all about.

I was wrong. The descriptions of the challenges of building the poor people's campaign, the role of black clergy like James Lawson and Ralph Jackson in ramping up the struggle in Memphis, the internal tensions in AFSCME and Wurf's role in pushing a broader view of the fight, and the overall transformative potential of this battle were all new to me.

Honey devotes a chapter each to King's two speeches in Memphis--both are moving and prophetic.

Amazing -- recommended to anyone who organizes or wants a better world.

[Taylor Brimhall · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's an eye opening book that anyone interested in the civil rights era should read. However, they throw A LOT of facts at you (dates, names etc.) so it's almost an overwhelming read if you try to retain everything. About half-way through I stopped trying to remember all the details and instead just tried to understand the gist of what was going on. The book is both fantastic and heart-wrenching. You learn details and hear stories about the sanitation strike and Martin Luther King's death that you won't get anywhere else.

[Momo29 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am currently reading this book along with others. This book is amazing and gives readers a look into the lives of the Memphis Sanitation workers who are on strike. This book discusses Martin Luther King's Poor People Campaign and how this impacted the Memphis Sanitation strike and the black community. The unity and committment of the black community in this book is amazing and often brings tears to my eyes.

[James Tracy · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can argue until the cows come home about the intersections of race and class or you can read this book about MLK's last days supporting the Black Garbage Workers of Memphis. Not only crucial history, but extremely well-written.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Some parts are slow and in some places it is hard to keep track of the people and events, but it is really worth sticking with it. Its a powerful account of an amazing event.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

the Memphis strike is seen from all sides. A highly dramatic story.

[Marsha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome detail.

[Dan Petegorsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compelling, close up account of the Memphis sanitation workers' strike, and especially of the respective roles of both the labor and civil rights movements.

[Laura]

very good