Rev typist drivers#

When she was done, the workers signed the letters.

It took all day on her IBM electric typewriter. When Jones asked if she would type letters for the workers, she instantly agreed. Hours later, as his eyesight slowly returned, she washed his eyes again and again. Employees.”Īt a later march, her husband was sprayed in the face with mace by the police. She has a newspaper clipping with a photo showing her and her husband holding signs that say, “Memphis AFL-CIO Labor Council Supports Sanitation Dept. made his first trip to Memphis to support the strikers. Those deaths sparked the famous “I Am a Man” strike by AFSCME Local 1733. Her voice still carries a sense of baffled shock at the inhumanity of it. The city only gave each family a month’s pay and $500 to help with the funeral expenses,” Blair recalled. “They said, ‘You cannot stop your work to pray or anything like that.’ Those workers had no burial insurance. When Blair heard the news, and how the city handled it, she was disgusted.

Their names were Echol Cole and Robert Walker, 36 and 29 years old, respectively. 1, the compactor on one of the trucks short-circuited and crushed two men who rode in the back. Workers had raised concerns about the hazards of riding in the back and about how the trash compactors sometimes malfunctioned dangerously. The garbage haulers had to ride in the back with the trash.

Rev typist drivers#

In 1968, the sanitation truck drivers in Memphis were white, and the garbage haulers were black and were prohibited from riding in the trucks’ cabs to stay warm.