2016 Postmortem
In reply to the discussion: Racism is a tool of the wealthy used to keep poor people from uniting. [View all]JustAnotherGen
(31,823 posts)What were the names of the two sanitation workers in Memphis that were killed?
Why were they in the malfunctioning garbage truck?
What was on the 'sign' the black men (1000 black men in Memphis) held - what did it say?
These three things should accompany the video
It wasn't until King got real pissed off about how black workers - state employees - not corporate or business - were getting treated - that he got killed.
Loeb, the white mayor of Memphis who entered office in January 1968 - refused to recognize the rights these men had that white sanitation workers had around America.
Loeb:
Refused to take dilapidated trucks out of service (the malfunctioning garbage truck Echole and Walker were hiding from the elements in. ***Note - they were not allowed to say - stand on a porch of a white owned home to hide from a rain storm. The color line remained even for those who were employees of a government. That's why they were in the back of the truck.
Refused the men overtime who worked late into the night.
Hundreds of HARD WORKING BLACK MEN who were employed by the city in the state of TN in the country USA relied on welfare and food stamps because their wages were so low.
Then Echole and Walker are killed - and get this: Their families were not given the same kind of workers comp that say - a white male city employee would received when killed on the job due to unsafe working conditions. Because they were black men though -can we just go on ahead and point out how uppity and racist the white folks were in Memphis? Good enough to pick up their garbage - yet disposable when working in inclement weather. You can't make this shit up - this is America. *sigh*
And that's where it came from.
Had the white leadership - elected leaders - of government treated their TAX payers and citizens fairly without regard to the color of their skin . . . had they treated them like men -
MLK would never have been on that balcony and he never would have gotten shot.
This is basic knowledge that black Americans are given to them by their parents because the white owned/managed public school system doesn't want white kids learning the truth about their grandparents.
Heaven forbid people are taught that those 1000 workers up against 4K armed national guardsmen were black folks. We'd need a helluva lot of smelling salts if this information got out.