USA Today: Memphis workers pick up where MLK left off

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-04-02-King_N.htm



Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famous sermon, "I've been to the mountain top" on the eve of his assasination at the Mason Temple in Memphis PHOTO GALLERY

Copyrighted photo, Richard Copley

By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY
MEMPHIS — Nathaniel Broome treasures a memento of his place in history: a black-and-white placard, now bent and coffee-stained, depicting the 65-day strike that marked his entry into the civil rights movement.

The sign evokes the day Broome and his fellow sanitation workers marched with Martin Luther King Jr. to press for better pay and working conditions. On March 28, 1968, King led the workers to Memphis City Hall for a protest that ended in violence, killing one person.


By Lisa W. Buser, USA TODAY
Nathaniel Broome, 72, marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 for sanitation worker's rights in Memphis and is still on the job, as are two dozen others.


One week later, on April 4, King himself was dead. James Earl Ray shot him as King, then 39, stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel near the city's downtown.

PHOTO GALLERY: Memphis worker lives King legacy
Q&A: Author speaks on how King's death 'Changed America'

Forty years after King's assassination, Broome and 24 of his co-workers from that time are still on the job. They are a living testament to the final, unfinished chapter in King's crusade for equal rights: to end poverty through guaranteed jobs with decent wages.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Martin Luther King Jr. | County | Federation of State | Civil Rights Act | Municipal Employees | Voting Rights Act | Howard University | Martin Luther King III | Lorraine Motel | Broome | Changed America | Mountaintop

Today, Broome and his colleagues are paid more and enjoy greater benefits than when they marched with King — in an era when they carried 55-gallon drums of trash on their heads for $1.70 an hour and had few rights as workers.

"People used to laugh at us," Broome says. "They called us 'walking buzzards' because we picked up the trash."

FULL story at link.