March 28, 1968
Martin Luther King Jr. made his last march. Joined by Ralph Abernathy and James Lawson, King led a march of sanitation workers in Memphis.
More than 1,300 workers had gone on strike after the deaths of two workers, Echol Cole and Robert Walker, who took shelter in the back of the truck to avoid the frigid February rain. The white driver had refused to allow the two men into the cab of the truck. Cole and Walker wound up getting crushed.
“The two men’s deaths left their wives and children destitute,” Michael K. Honey wrote in “Going Down Jericho Road.” “A funeral home held the men’s bodies until the families found a way to pay for their caskets.”…