WS Chronicle

Chronicle Staff Report On Feb. 1, Mayor Allen Joines and City Council Members Dan Besse and John Larson held an announcement to declare a Day of Remembrance for two sanitation workers whose deaths 50 years ago marked the beginning of a workers’ strike that drew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, Tennessee. On Feb. 1, 1968, two Memphis sanitation workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, were crushed to death by a poorly maintained, malfunctioning compactor in their garbage truck. This prompted 1,300 black sanitation workers to go on strike, which drew King to Memphis, where he was assassinated on April 4, 1968, on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. More than 30 cities around the country recognized this Day of Remembrance last week.