"I AM a 1968 Memphis Sanitation MAN!": Race, Masculinity, and The

LaborHistory, Vol. 41, No. 2, 2000 ªIAMA MAN!º: Race,Masculinity, and the 1968 MemphisSanitation Strike STEVEESTES* On March 28, 1968 Martin LutherKing, Jr. directeda march ofthousands of African-American protestersdown Beale Street,one of the major commercial thoroughfares in Memphis,Tennessee. King’ splane had landedlate that morning, and thecrowd was already onthe verge ofcon¯ ict with thepolice whenhe and other members ofthe Southern Christian LeadershipConference (SCLC) took their places at thehead of the march. The marchers weredemonstrating their supportfor 1300 striking sanitation workers,many ofwhom wore placards that proclaimed, ªIAm a Man.ºAs the throng advanceddown Beale Street,some of the younger strike support- ersripped theprotest signs off the the wooden sticks that they carried. Theseyoung men,none of whomwere sanitation workers,used the sticks to smash glass storefronts onboth sidesof the street. Looting ledto violent police retaliation. Troopers lobbed tear gas into groups ofprotesters and sprayed mace at demonstratorsunlucky enough tobe in range. High above thefray in City Hall, Mayor HenryLoeb sat in his of®ce, con®dent that thestrike wasillegal, andthat law andorder wouldbe maintained in Memphis.1 This march wasthe latest engagement in a®ght that had raged in Memphissince the daysof slaveryÐ acon¯ict over African-American freedomsand civil rights. In one sense,the ª IAm aManºslogan wornby thesanitation workersrepresented a demand for recognition oftheir dignity andhumanity. This demandcaught whiteMemphians bysurprise,because they had always prided themselvesas being ªprogressiveºon racial issues.Token integration had quietly replaced public segregation in Memphisby the mid-1960s, butin the1967 mayoral elections,segregationist candidateHenry Loeb rodea waveof white backlash against racial ªmoderationºinto of®ce. Loeb took his electionas a mandate tomaintain law andorder (i.e.the racial statusquo). The mayor still referredto black Memphiansas ª his Negroesºwhen he spoke to the press, and observerscharacterized his vision ofrace relations asreminiscent of a ªplantation mentality.º 2 Strike leadersfocused much of their rhetoric onLoeb’ spaternalism and denial ofthestrikers’ manhood.In this interpretation ofthe ª IAmaManºslogan, the *Theauthor would liketo thank LeonFink, Jacquelyn Hall, MichaelHoney, Susan Levine,Kris Ray, Holloway Sparks, and especiallyBob Prattand Bryant Simon fortheir helpful comments and suggestions on earlierdrafts of this article. 1Joan TurnerBeifuss, At the RiverI Stand:Memphis, the 1968Strike, andMartin Luther King, Jr. (Memphis: B&WBooks, 1985)244± 245. This is by farthe most comprehensivenarrative of the sanitation strikepublished to date. 2GaryWills, ªMartinLuther King IsStill on the Case !º Esquire,August1968, 99; David Appelby, Allison Graham, and Stephen John Ross, producersof the ®lm At the RiverI Stand ,California Newsreel,San Francisco,California. For an excellentanalysis ofpaternalism and civilrights, seeWilliam Chafe, Civilities andCivil Rights: Greensboro,North Carolinaand the Black Struggle forFreedom (NewYork: OxfordUniversity Press,1980). 0023-656X print/1469-9702 online/00/020153±18 Ó 2000 Taylor &Francis Ltd on behalf of The Tamiment Institute 154 S. Estes FIG.1. Strikersand theirsupporters protesting in March1968. Photographer BarneySellers, Commercial Appeal.Courtesyof the Mississippi ValleyCollection, Universityof Memphis Library. calls for manhoodwere also calls for respectof human dignity ofall black Memphians, both womenand men. But in another sense,ª IAm aManºrepresented a distinctly gendereddispute over what it meant tobe a man. On thesurface, this ®ght for recognition ofmanhood seems straightforward. Once whitemen began totreat black menwith therespect and dignity that black menfelt they deserved,the problem might appear tobe solved. But there are almost asmany differentde® nitions of manhood as there are men,and these change over time. The young menwho ripped thesigns off their sticksduring themarch werecontesting not only whiteconstructions of manhood, but also themanhood espoused by older black leaders.De® nitions of manhood in Memphiswere further complicated by thefact that black andwhite masculinity restedon de® nitions of womanhood as well asrace, age, andclass. The struggle for manhoodin Memphisresists a simple black andwhite model ofgender identity. The sanitation workers’protest illuminates aspectrumof meanings for manhoodand womanhood in both theblack andwhite communities, and it offersa chanceto investigate theways in which genderedlanguage has beenused to confrontand, at times,reinforce social andeconomic inequalities in America. 3 Until the1960s and1970s, labor historians focusedalmost exclusively onmen. Unstatedgender assumptions allowed thesescholars touse gender-neutral terms such 3Muchof the recentscholarship on raceand masculinity has shaped my analysis here,but the bestwork is GailBederman’ s Manliness andCivilization: ACultural History ofGender andRace in the United States, 1880± 1917 (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press,1995). For genderanalysis in the civilrights movement, seeSara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots ofWomen’ sLiberation in the CivilRights Movement andthe New Left (NewYork: VintageBooks, 1980). The1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike 155 asª workerºand ª organizerºto refer tomen only. The rise ofwomen’shistory opened upnew vistas for genderanalysis oflabor struggles, butthis analysis has only recently in¯uenced the way labor historians look at male workersand male-dominated labor movements.Alice Kessler-Harris,Elizabeth Faue,and others have urgedlabor histori- ansto recognize that notionsof both femininity andmasculinity shapethe way people understandwork and worker rights. Kessler-Harrisargues, for instance,ª Working-class mencontinually renegotiatedforms of masculinity ¼that extrapolated thepower of the householdand utilized it in their struggle with employers,ºeven though shenotes that theseefforts were often only ªmarginally successful.º4 While Faue andKessler-Harris have begunto offer gendered analyses of labor history generally, JoeWilliam Trotter admits that scholars ofAfrican-American labor history ªknowlittle about theconstruc- tion ofmale identitiesand the changes therein among African American workers.º 5 Moreoften than not,historians have had toread betweenthe lines for genderanalysis oflabor movementsthat seemedto concern overtly classor racial issues,because the ªnormative natureºof masculinity oftenrendered it ªinvisibleºto the historical actors. 6 Masculinity,racial identity,and labor relations wereall highly visible, however,in the Memphissanitation strike.Workers, union organizers, civil rights leaders,and city of®cials consciouslywielded gendered rhetoric tonegotiate wages,the right tounionize, andultimately powerrelations betweenwhites and blacks, men and women. * * * * * * The racial compositionof the Memphis labor forcebegan toshift aroundthe turn of thecentury when increased mechanization ofagricultural productionand new urban jobopportunities encouraged black migration from farms in theMississippi Delta to citieslike Memphis.This migration exacerbated tensionsbetween black andwhite urban residentsthat eruptedin periodic outbreaksof violence and lynchings andraised seriousquestions about race,gender, and sexuality. 7 Black people whohad formerly workedthe land assharecroppers competedwith whitesfor manufacturing jobsin Memphis.This ledto a working classdivided along racial lines.Most attempts to organize interracial alliances among workersin theSouth failed, andthe majority ofthe Memphislabor unionsthat survived remained segregated.When white workers fought for raises,they usually demandedhigher wagesfor whitesonly. As W.E.B. DuBois suggests,white supremacy in theworkplace offeredhigher ªpsychological wagesºfor 4Elizabeth Faue, ªGenderand the Reconstructionof Labor History,º LaborHistory , 34 (1993), 169±177; Alice Kessler-Harris, ª Treatingthe Maleas `Other’:Rede®ning the Parametersof Labor History,º LaborHistory ,34(1993), 190±204. See also Ava Baron, WorkEngendered: Towarda New History ofAmerican Labor (Ithaca: CornellUniversity Press, 1991) and LaurieCaroline Pintar, ªHerbert K.Sorrellas the GradeB Hero:Militancy and Masculinityin the Studios,º LaborHistory , 37 (1996), 392± 416. 5JoeWilliam TrotterJr., ªAfrican-AmericanWorkers: New Directions in U.S. Labor Historiography,º LaborHistory ,35(1994), 495±523. See also, EarlyLewis, ª InvokingConcepts, ProblematizingIdentities: TheLife of Charles N.Hunterand the Implications forthe Study ofGender and Labor,º LaborHistory , 34(1993), 292±308. 6Kessler-Harris,ª Treatingthe Maleas `Other’,º196. 7GailBederman, ª`Civilization,’ TheDecline of Middle-Class Manliness, and IdaB. Wells’ Anti-lynching Campaign,º RadicalHistory Review ,52(1992), 13. 156 S. Estes somepoor whiteworkers. 8 Integrated unions,like integrated public facilities, might have jeopardizedpoorer whites’social status. 9 Lowwages and poor working conditionsin theMemphis Public WorksDepartment ofthe1950s and1960s werea directresult of racial divisionsin theworkplace. White supervisorsopenly discriminated against black employeesin jobassignments, pay scales,and advancement. Black sanitation workersin Memphisearned so little money at this time that 40% ofthe men quali® edfor welfare eventhough many workedsecond jobs.In addition topaying minusculewages, the city attemptedto save money by refusingto modernize ancient equipment used by black workers.Until thePublic Works Commissionergrudgingly purchasedpushcarts

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