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Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers. the Constitution Community: Postwar United States (1945 to Early 1970S)

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Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers. the Constitution Community: Postwar United States (1945 to Early 1970S) DOCUMENT RESUME ED 462 357 SO 033 608 AUTHOR Perry, Douglas TITLE Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers. The Constitution Community: Postwar United States (1945 to Early 1970s) . INSTITUTION National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, DC. PUB DATE 2000-00-00 NOTE 16p.; Photographic images may not reproduce clearly. AVAILABLE FROM National Archives and Records Administration, 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20408. Tel: 866-325-7208 (Toll Free); e-mail: [email protected]. For full text: http://www.nara.gov/education/cc/main.html. PUB TYPE Guides Classroom Teacher (052) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Activism; *Black Leadership; *Citizen Participation; *Civil Rights; Legal Problems; *Primary Sources; Secondary Education; Social Studies; Teacher Developed Materials; *United States History IDENTIFIERS Bill of Rights; First Amendment; *King (Martin Luther Jr); National Civics and Government Standards; National History Standards ABSTRACT During inclement weather in Memphis, Tennessee in February 1968, two separate incidents caused black sanitation workers to strike for job safety, better wages and benefits, and union recognition. Mayor Henry Loeb was unsympathetic and opposed to the union. Martin Luther King agreed to lend his support to the sanitation workers and spoke at a rally in Memphis on March 18, 1968. He promised to lead the large march and work stoppage planned for later in the month. Unfortunately, violent disturbances at the march prompted the city of Memphis to bring a formal complaint in the District Court against King and his associates in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. This lesson relates to two clauses in the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, which ensure individuals the right to assemble peaceably and to petition the government for the redress of grievances. As primary source documents, the lesson presents Defendants' exhibits 1 and 2 in "City of Memphis v. Martin Luther King, Jr. et. al," and the answer to Plaintiff in the same case, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee (wherein King and associates denied being engaged in a conspiracy to incite riots) .The lesson correlates to the National History Standards and the National Standards for Civics and Government. It provides historical background (15 resources); and suggests diverse teaching activities, including document analysis, class discussion, brainstorming, constitutional connection, creative expression, dramatic reading, dialogues, and extension research. Appended are a written document analysis worksheet and the documents. (BT) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ational Archives and Records Administration THE CONSTITUTION COMMUNITY Postwar United States (1945 to early 1970s) Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., And Memphis Sanitation Workers CO By Douglas Peny National Archives and Records Administration CO 700 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Washington, D.C. 20408 Office of Educational Research and Improvement CO EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1-866-325-7208 This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. http://www.nara.gov/education/classrm.html 1:1 .Mihor changes have been made to 0 improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this (1) document do not necessarily represent 2000 official OERI position or policy. The Constitution Community is a partnership between classroom teachers and education specialists from the National Archives and Records Administration. We are developing lessons and activities that address constitutional issues, correlate to national academic standards, and encourage the analysis of primary source documents. The lessons that have been developed are arranged according to historical era. 2 BESTCOPYAVAILABLE ational Archives and Records Administration THE CONSTITUTION COMMUNITY Court Documents Related to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Memphis Sanitation Workers Constitutional Connection This lesson relates to two clauses in the First Amendment in the Bill of Rights, which ensure Americans the right to assemble peaceably and to petition the government for the redress of grievances. In very broad terms this lesson also relates to the Preamble of the Constitution, which lists to "establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, ...promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" among the purposes of the union. This lesson correlates to the National History Standards. Era 9 -Postwar United States (1945-early 1970s) Standard 4A -Demonstrate understanding of the Second Reconstruction and its advancement of civil rights. This lesson correlates to the National Standards for Civics and Government. Standard III.D.2. -Evaluate, take, and defend positions on current issues regarding the judicial protection of individual rights. Standard V.E.1. -Evaluate, take, and defend positions on the relationship between politics and the attainment of individual and public goals. Cross-curricular Connections Share these activities with your colleagues who teach language arts and American studies. List of Documents 1. [Defendants'] exhibit 1 in City of Memphis v. Martin Luther King, Jr., let al.] , 1968. This exhibit is a flyer distributed to sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, asking them to "March for Justice and Jobs." Included are directions for the route to be followed and instructions to the marchers to use "soul-force which is peaceful, loving, courageous, yet militant." 2. [Defendants'] exhibit 2 in City of Memphis v. Martin Luther King, Jr., let ,1968. This exhibit is a flyer distributed in Memphis, Tennessee, requesting volunteer assistance and offering instructions to sanitation workers and their sympathizers for the duration of a strike. 3. Answer to Plaintiff in City of Memphis v. Martin Luther King, Jr., let ,filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee, Western Division, April 4, 1968. This document gives the response of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Reverend Hosea Williams, Reverend James Bevel, Reverend James Orange, Ralph D. Abernathy, and Bernard Lee to allegations by the city of Memphis, Tennessee, that they had been engaged in a conspiracy to incite riots or breaches of the peace. They also denied that they had refused to furnish information concerning marches and explained the steps they had taken to ensure the march would be nonviolent and under control. Dr. King further stated that he had received threats against his personal safety, (page 1) (page 2) (page 3) Historical Background The name of Martin Luther King, Jr., is intertwined with the history of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s in the United States. The Montgomery bus boycott, the freedom rides, the Birmingham campaign, the March on Washington, the Selma march, the Chicago campaign, and the Memphis boycott are some of the more noteworthy battlefields where King and his followers--numerous in numbers, humble and great in name-- fought for the equal rights and equal justice that the United States Constitution ensures for all its citizens. King, building on the tradition of civil disobedience and passive resistance earlier expressed by Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Gandhi, waged a war of nonviolent direct action against opposing forces of racism and prejudice that were embodied in the persons of local police, mayors, governors, angry citizens, and night riders of the Ku Klux Klan. The great legal milestones achieved by this movement were the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In the later 1960s, the targets of King's activism were less often the legal and political obstacles to the exercise of civil rights by blacks, and more often the underlying poverty, unemployment, lack of education, and blocked avenues of economic opportunity confronting black Americans. Despite increasing militancy in the movement for black power, King steadfastly adhered to the principles of nonviolence that had been the foundation of his career. Those principles were put to a severe test in his support of a strike by sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee. This was King's final campaign before his death. During a heavy rainstorm in Memphis on February 1, 1968, two black sanitation workers had been crushed to death when the compactor mechanism of the trash truck was accidently triggered. On the same day in a separate incident also related to the inclement weather, 22 black sewer workers had been sent home without pay while their white supervisors were retained for the day with pay. About two weeks later, on February 12, more than 1,100 of a possible 1,300 black sanitation workers began a strike for job safety, better wages and benefits, and union recognition. Mayor Henry Loeb, unsympathetic to most of the workers' demands, was especially opposed to the union. Black and white civic groups in Memphis tried to resolve the conflict, but the mayor held fast to his position. As the strike lengthened, support for the strikers within the black community of Memphis grew. Organizations such as COME (Community on the Move for Equality) established food and clothing banks in churches, took up collections for strikers to meet rent and mortgages, and recruited marchers for frequent demonstrations. King's participation in forming a city-wide boycott to support the striking workers was invited
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