The strike was one of the last campaigns of the civil rights movement in South Carolina, and the first of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. the year before.

Five years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, African Americans in Charleston's Medical College Hospital were still treated more poorly than white employees.

[1] Other African American nurses and hospital workers stated that they were being paid less than white employees who did the same work, receiving $1.30 per hour, 30¢ below the minimum wage.

The Local 1199B union, with assistance from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), requested formal recognition from the hospital's president, which was rejected.

However, according to Louise Brown, one of the African American women who was fired, the twelve workers were on their lunch break; their patients, as usual, were already covered by other hospital staff.

[4] Governor Robert McNair prohibited the Medical College and Charleston County from compromising with the strikers and to urged them to avoid anything that would appear to be collective bargaining.

[4] William Bill Saunders, a Korean War veteran who participated in the strike, observed that police arrested dozens of people daily.

[7] Most politicians in South Carolina agreed with Governor McNair's response to the strike, though his constituents grew increasingly frustrated by the ongoing fallout.

The Medical College Hospital promised to rehire strikers the following week, including the original twelve employees who had been fired, and to abide by a newly established six-step grievance process, and to provide modest pay increases.

[11] On August 15, 1969, two hundred black Charleston city sanitation workers led a similar strike to protest and demanded better wages and improved working conditions.