[1] President Richard Nixon called out the United States armed forces and the National Guard in an attempt to distribute the mail and break the strike.

APWU president Moe Biller described Manhattan (New York City) post offices as like "dungeons," dirty, stifling, too hot in summer, and too cold in winter.

[1] Isaac & Christiansen identify the civil rights movement as a major contributor to the 1970 strike as well as other radical labor actions.

They highlight several causal connections, including cultural climate, overlapping personnel, and the simple "demonstration effect," showing that nonviolent civil disobedience could accomplish political change.

[6] On March 17, 1970, in New York City, members of National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 36 met in Manhattan and voted to strike.

This was a mass action where rank and file leaders emerged like Manhattan letter carrier Vincent Sombrotto, who would go on to be elected first branch and then national president of the NALC.

[7] President Nixon appeared on national television and ordered the employees back to work, but his address only stiffened the resolve of the existing strikers and angered workers in another 671 locations in other cities into walking out as well.

Due to couriers striking, this led to the lack of distribution of the mail and a massive buildup of important government and financial documents.

The strike not only affected a normal citizens daily life, but also prohibited 18 year old men from being notified about them being drafted to go to war in Vietnam.

[4] The strike ended after eight days with not a single worker being fired, as the Nixon administration continued to negotiate with postal union leaders.

[16] During the 1960s Jim Crow Era, Mississippi NAACP leadership rose as African American civil rights activists joined the postal workers union.

This postal worker unionism within the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) was kept off media news due to the activism being in the Upper Midwest.