NAACP honors Memphis sanitation workers from 1968

A group of sanitation workers whose strike 50 years ago brought civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis is being honored. The surviving workers are recipients of this year’s NAACP Vanguard Award.

King came to Memphis to support the workers, who pushed for better working conditions and higher pay. On April 4, 1968, he was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel.