In This Issue: Pg. 3 Director’s Letter Pg. 4 What is Love? Pg. 6 Tips to get healthy
A View From the
M OUNTAINTOP
This Black History Month we reflect on Memphis’ role in the civil rights movement Memphis is a city with an old soul. It has been seared by fires and barraged by the Mississippi waters. Its mud and sand have been faithful foundations for blues bars and gospel churches. The cobbled roads have carried soldiers marching to battle and vagabonds seeking shelter from desolation. In 1968, Memphis was a segregated city. Racial equality had been suppressed by the Mayor Henry Loeb administration even after Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act was supposed to guarantee that discrimination, against any minority was illegal. But African American workers still struggled under the oppression of unfair pay and racial segregation. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivering his On a rainy January 30th, the city sent all of its “Mountaintop” speech to Memphis sanitation workers African American sanitation workers home with partial pay, which was a fairly regular practice, but paid white workers the full amount. The next day, two African American men were crushed to death inside a garbage truck while trying to escape a heavy rain. These deaths resulted in 1,300 African American sanitation workers walking off the job and Mayor Loeb declaring their strike illegal. Daily marches were held around city hall. Warrants were issued to arrest union leaders. Ultimatums were given to protesters. Get back to work or be replaced. But equality was the only thing they wanted to take. Civil rights were the only things they would work for. On February 23rd, the City Council refuses to recognize the African American union despite meeting with black city leaders and the NAACP. Police attack strikers during a march on Main Street, using mace. By February 27th, a surge of relation by hundreds of protestors had flooded the courtyards of city hall. Dr. King and the SCLC were called in to maintain community morale and also to help bring national attention to the striker’s cause. Then a freak snowstorm in March blanketed the city. Dr. King couldn’t get into Memphis and the ice held everything and everyone hostage. The bitter cold stifled the bloom of the dogwoods and daffodils. The welcomed thaw of spring was driven away by winter’s last stand. But the protestors rallied on. Mountain continued on pg.2