Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign Contributor(s): Honey, Michael K. (Author) |
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ISBN: 0393330532 ISBN-13: 9780393330533 Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company OUR PRICE: $17.96 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: January 2008 Annotation: "The definitive appreciation of the Memphis garbage strike, one of the pivotal human-rights moments in late twentieth-century America."--David Levering Lewis Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic "plantation mentality" embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a months-long public-employee strike that would shake the nation. With novelistic drama and rich scholarly detail, this "first-rate chronicle" ("Seattle Times") relates the riveting story of the 1968 strike that shook Memphis--and claimed Martin Luther King's life. 16 pages of illustrations. |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Social Science | Ethnic Studies - African American Studies - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) - Political Science | Labor & Industrial Relations |
Dewey: 331.892 |
LCCN: 2006032217 |
Physical Information: 1" H x 5.5" W x 8.2" (1.30 lbs) 640 pages |
Themes: - Ethnic Orientation - African American - Chronological Period - 1960's - Locality - Memphis, Tennessee - Geographic Orientation - Tennessee - Topical - Black History - Chronological Period - 20th Century |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic plantation mentality embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up like garbage in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a public employee strike that brought to a boil long-simmering issues of racial injustice. With novelistic drama and rich scholarly detail, Michael Honey brings to life the magnetic characters who clashed on the Memphis battlefield: stalwart black workers; fiery black ministers; volatile, young, black-power advocates; idealistic organizers and tough-talking unionists; the first black members of the Memphis city council; the white upper crust who sought to prevent change or conflagration; and, finally, the magisterial Martin Luther King Jr., undertaking a Poor People's Campaign at the crossroads of his life, vilified as a subversive, hounded by the FBI, and seeing in the working poor of Memphis his hopes for a better America. |
Contributor Bio(s): Honey, Michael K.: - Michael K. Honey, a former Southern civil rights and civil liberties organizer, is Haley Professor of Humanities at the University of Washington Tacoma, where he teaches labor, ethnic, and gender studies and American history. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and has won numerous research fellowships and book awards for his books on labor, race relations, and civil rights history, including the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for Going Down Jericho Road. He lives in Tacoma with his wife, Pat Krueger. |