[1][2]  The deaths served as a breaking point for more than 1,300 African American men from the Memphis Department of Public Works as they demanded higher wages, time and a half overtime, dues check-off, safety measures, and pay for the rainy days when they were told to go home.

Jones and had the support of Jerry Wurf, president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the local branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

[1][4][5] The Memphis sanitation strike prompted Martin Luther King Jr.'s presence, where he famously gave the "I've Been to the Mountaintop" speech a day before his assassination.

The influential politician E. H. Crump had created a city police force, much of it culled from the Ku Klux Klan, that acted violently toward the Black population and maintained Jim Crow.

Many Black people were afraid to unionize due to the fear of persecution, which was justified in 1963, when 33 sanitation workers were fired immediately after attending an organizing meeting.

[11] Upon taking office, Loeb increased regulations on the city's workers and appointed Charles Blackburn as the Public Works Commissioner.

[12] On February 1, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, two sanitation workers,[13] were crushed to death in a garbage compactor where they were taking shelter from the rain.

Local 1733 held a strike meeting on February 11 where over 400 workers explained that the city refused to provide decent wages and working conditions.

Elmore Nickelberry, who was one of the strikers during this time speaks of Mayor Loeb and how it was impossible to negotiate with him, due to him being a "stubborn man".

Ben Jones, another striker with 43 years on the job, spoke of the conditions that all sanitation workers had to deal with, including how heavy all the garbage bins were and how they would leak all over them.

[17][18] On February 18, AFSCME International President Jerry Wurf arrives in Memphis, exclaiming that the strike will only end when the workers’ demands are met.

[2] Mayor Loeb continued to refuse union recognition and dues withdrawn from wages because he argued that AFSCME officials only wanted to fill their pockets with the hard-earned money of local Memphians.

By February 21, the sanitation workers established a daily routine of meeting at noon with nearly a thousand strikers and then marching from Clayborn Temple to downtown.

Jackson declared further that once the immediate demands of the strikers were met, the movement would focus on ending police brutality, as well as improving housing and education across the city for Black Memphians.

[4] On March 18, Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis to praise a 25,000 crowd of labor and civil right activists for their unity stating, "You are demonstrating that we can stick together.

[1] After peacefully marching for several blocks, singing "We Shall Overcome", Black armed men with iron pipes and bricks, and carrying signs, began smashing windows and looting along the stores.

[1] In the midst of the chaos, police officer Leslie Dean Jones shot and killed sixteen-year-old Larry Payne.

[19] The local news media were generally favorable to Loeb, portraying union leaders (and later Martin Luther King Jr.) as meddling outsiders.

[12] Jones, Lucy, Ciampa, and other union leaders, asked the striking workers to focus on labor solidarity and downplay racism.

Beyond advocacy, AFSCME provided practical support, including legal aid for workers arrested during protests and financial assistance for their families, ensuring they could endure the long strike.

The union also applied significant political and social pressure on the city of Memphis to recognize them as the workers’ official bargaining representative.

[27] On April 8, a completely silent march with the SCLC, Coretta Scott King, and UAW president Walter Reuther attracted 42,000 participants.

[28] In July 2017, Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland announced that the city would offer $50,000 in tax-free grants to the 14 surviving 1968 sanitation strikers, who were either still on payroll to maintain standard of living or could not retire in relative comfort as they had to forgo pension and thus receiving a small Social Security check monthly.

[30] In October 2017, Baxter Leach represented the sanitation strikers at the National Civil Rights Museum Freedom Awards.

[34] After Martin Luther King Jr. was killed, the Memphis sanitation workers' strike went from being a local labor fight to a national issue.

Even groups that weren't active before, like white religious leaders and the business community in Memphis, spoke out in favor of a solution.

In response to the shock and interest across the country, the U.S. government sent Undersecretary of Labor James Reynolds to mediate on behalf of President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Reynolds brought important resources and pressure to the table, which eventually led local leaders to come to an agreement.

Aside from the direct effects, Memphis business leaders, worried about the city's reputation, put even more pressure on officials to end the strike quickly.

King's legacy lived on through these things, making civil rights efforts stronger and showing how a leader's influence can last and shape social justice campaigns long after they are gone.