50 years later, City of Memphis still has struggles, still cares
On this weekend 50 years ago, the city of Memphis was in a collective state of shock brought on by a hazardous mixture of grief, fear and anger.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had been gunned down by an assassin at 6:01 p.m. on Thursday, April 4, 1968. As the tragic news spread that evening, violence and vandalism erupted in Memphis and other cities across the nation, including Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Baltimore.
Community and civic leaders in Memphis had tried mightily to keep Memphis peaceful, unlike other places in the South – notably Birmingham and Selma in Alabama and Jackson and Philadelphia in Mississippi – that experienced brutal and deadly racial violence.
The assassination, however, threatened to put an emphatic end to their decade-long effort to keep a lid on racial unrest in the Bluff City. So on Sunday, April 7 – three days after King’s death, the largely placid Memphis Committee on Community Relations staged a “Memphis Cares“rally at Crump Stadium.
A racially-diverse crowd of about 6,000 people showed up to hear a succession of speakers advocate for unity, healing and peace. They included Rev. James Lawson, a leading spokesman for striking city sanitation workers; Rev. Ben Hooks, a prominent member of the NAACP; and automobile dealer John T. Fisher, one of the few white businessmen in Memphis willing to speak out in favor of giving black citizens a voice in political and civic affairs.
Noticeably absent at Crump Stadium that day was Mayor Henry Loeb who, despite King’s death, remained defiant to the bitter end. He did proclaim three days of official mourning in Memphis, but had to be goaded by local religious and business leaders and national political figures into giving in to demands by the sanitation workers and settling the strike. Finally, some semblance of healing in a fractured city could begin.
Today, as we put the cap on an extraordinary week of moving tributes and meaningful discussions commemorating MLK50, here are my takeaways in response to the searing question that was the theme of the observance: where do we go from here?
First, it’s obvious from the many panel discussions and speeches during the past week that King came to the end of his life fighting for three main causes, addressing poverty, reducing racism and de-emphasizing militarism.
Without question, overt racism is less prevalent today than it was in 1968. But poverty remains a nagging issue. Plus, implicit bias combined with explicit public policies dealing with voting rights, health care and criminal justice have served to keep racism as one of this nation’s major ills.
A University of Memphis fact sheet on poverty released in 2017 put the city’s overall poverty rate at 27 percent,
but 32.3 percent for African Americans. Both are increases from 2016, and compare to a national rate of 14 percent.
As a Baptist preacher, King was well aware of the biblical reference that the poor will always be with us. But he strongly believed that those in poverty, particularly the working poor, deserve dignity.
It’s why he came to Memphis in 1968 to support striking sanitation workers. He told a large crowd at Mason Temple on March 18 that all labor, including menial labor, has dignity and those workers should not be paid starvation wages.
Today, the fight is for a living wage in the private sector, mostly among service industry workers. It is a tough fight that’s mired in partisan politics. And yet, the fight must continue.
But the biggest takeaway from the week is the push to reinforce voting rights in America. King came to Memphis more than once to urge black residents to use the power of the vote. Yet speaker after speaker this week decried the systematic attempt to chip away at that right.
They denounced various policies designed to stifle voting by minorities and criticized redistricting efforts that in effect allow politicians to pick their voters, not the other way around.
“To me, the question of voting is the chief civil rights issue of our time,” said former U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder, the keynote speaker during a U of M sponsored symposium at The Peabody.
Politics aside, this was primarily a week for the nation to remember an iconic leader and for Memphis to give itself a gut check. The sobering fact is, Dr. King’s assassination will always be a stain on this city’s image. But it should not completely define us.
And like the hastily arranged rally 50 years ago this weekend, Memphis still cares. The task for us all is to address our issues of poverty, crime, economic and population loss, income inequality and low education attainment together.
Otis Sanford holds the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Journalism and Strategic Media at the University of Memphis. Contact him at 901-678-3669 or at o.sanford@memphis.edu. Follow him on Twitter @otissanford and watch his commentaries weekdays on WATN Local 24 at 5 p.m.