Marching to the Mountaintop: How Poverty, Labor Fights and Civil Rights Set the Stage for Martin Luther King Jr's Final Hours
In early 1968 the grisly on-the-job deaths of two African-American sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee, prompted an extended strike by that city's segregated force of trash collectors.Workers sought union protection, higher wages, improved safety, and the integration of their work force. Their work stoppage became a part of the larger civil rights movement and drew an impressive array of national movement leaders to Memphis, including, on more than one occasion, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.King added his voice to the struggle in what became the final speech of his life. His assassination in Memphis on April 4 not only sparked protests and violence throughout America; it helped force the acceptance of worker demands in Memphis. The sanitation strike ended eight days after King's death.The connection between the Memphis sanitation strike and King's death has not received the emphasis it deserves, especially for younger readers. Marching to the Mountaintop explores how the media, politics, the Civil Rights Movement, and labor protests all converged to set the scene for one of King's greatest speeches and for his tragic death.National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.From the Hardcover edition.
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The publisher and author gratefully acknowledge the review of proofs for this book by historian Michael K. Honey. For more information on the topic, consult Professor Honey’s definitive, award-winning account of the history, Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign (W. W. Norton & Company, 2007).
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COVER: The cover illustration combines a view taken of Martin Luther King, Jr., on the day before his death with a scene of striking Memphis workers before the attempted protest of March 28, 1968. Endpapers replicate popular protest signs from Memphis civil rights events in 1968. Pickets march past armed troops on March 29, 1968 (title page). Garbage accumulates in the street of an African-American neighborhood in 1968 (table of contents).
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bausum, Ann. Marching to the mountaintop : how poverty, labor fights, and civil rights set the stage for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s final hours / by Ann Bausum. — 1st ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. eISBN: 978-1-4263-0945-8 1. King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968—Juvenile literature. 2. King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968—Assassination—Juvenile literature. 3. Sanitation Workers Strike, Memphis, Tenn., 1968—Juvenile literature. 4. Labor movement—Tennessee—Memphis—History—20th century—Juvenile literature. 5. African Americans—Tennessee—Memphis—Social conditions—20th century—Juvenile literature. 6. Memphis (Tenn.)—Race relations—History—20th century—Juvenile literature. I. Title. E185.97.K5B38 2012 323.092–dc23 [B] 2011024661
Text copyright © 2012 Ann Bausum.
Compilation copyright © 2012 National Geographic Society.
All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission from the publisher is prohibited.
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Version: 2017-07-05
For the people of Memphis, and for blacks and whites everywhere who have fought against racism, including my fourth-grade teacher—Christine Warren—who was on the front lines of school integration in 1966-67. All that, and you helped me love to read, too! Thank you, Mrs. Warren! —AB
