Death of Echol Cole and Robert Walker

Echol Cole and Robert Walker were sanitation workers who died accidentally in Memphis, Tennessee at the corner of Colonial Rd.

The two African American men were prevented from seeking shelter from the rain inside a building due to segregation laws.

Their deaths were a precursor to the Memphis sanitation strike, during which the prominent civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

It looked to me like one of them almost got out, but he got caught and just fell back in there.”[1] Following their deaths, their widows received no insurance benefits; the city offered one month's pay for each man, and $500 for funeral expenses.

On February 11, ten days after their deaths, union Local 1733 held a strike meeting where over 400 workers complained that the city refused to provide decent wages and working conditions.