"I am a man!": Race, masculinity, and the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike

Labor History

Volumn 41, Issue 2, 2000, Pages 153-170

  Estes, Steve ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 0034409633     PISSN: 0023656X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00236560050009914     Document Type: Review

References (96)

1. Joan Turner Beifuss, At the River I Stand: Memphis, the 1968 Strike, and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Memphis: B & W Books, 1985) 244-245. This is by far the most comprehensive narrative of the sanitation strike published to date.
2. Gary Wills, "Martin Luther King Is Still on the Case!" Esquire, August 1968, 99; David Appelby, Allison Graham, and Stephen John Ross, producers of the film At the River I Stand, California Newsreel, San Francisco, California. For an excellent analysis of paternalism and civil rights, see William Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
3. Gary Wills, "Martin Luther King Is Still on the Case!" Esquire, August 1968, 99; David Appelby, Allison Graham, and Stephen John Ross, producers of the film At the River I Stand, California Newsreel, San Francisco, California. For an excellent analysis of paternalism and civil rights, see William Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
4. Gary Wills, "Martin Luther King Is Still on the Case!" Esquire, August 1968, 99; David Appelby, Allison Graham, and Stephen John Ross, producers of the film At the River I Stand, California Newsreel, San Francisco, California. For an excellent analysis of paternalism and civil rights, see William Chafe, Civilities and Civil Rights: Greensboro, North Carolina and the Black Struggle for Freedom (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980).
5. Much of the recent scholarship on race and masculinity has shaped my analysis here, but the best work is Gail Bederman's Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). For gender analysis in the civil rights movement, see Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (New York: Vintage Books, 1980).
6. Much of the recent scholarship on race and masculinity has shaped my analysis here, but the best work is Gail Bederman's Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). For gender analysis in the civil rights movement, see Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left (New York: Vintage Books, 1980).
7. Elizabeth Faue, "Gender and the Reconstruction of Labor History," Labor History, 34 (1993), 169-77; Alice Kessler-Harris, "Treating the Male as 'Other': Redefining the Parameters of Labor History," Labor History, 34 (1993), 190-204. See also Ava Baron, Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991) and Laurie Caroline Pintar, "Herbert K. Sorrell as the Grade B Hero: Militancy and Masculinity in the Studios," Labor History, 37 (1996), 392-412.
8. Elizabeth Faue, "Gender and the Reconstruction of Labor History," Labor History, 34 (1993), 169-77; Alice Kessler-Harris, "Treating the Male as 'Other': Redefining the Parameters of Labor History," Labor History, 34 (1993), 190-204. See also Ava Baron, Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991) and Laurie Caroline Pintar, "Herbert K. Sorrell as the Grade B Hero: Militancy and Masculinity in the Studios," Labor History, 37 (1996), 392-412.
9. Elizabeth Faue, "Gender and the Reconstruction of Labor History," Labor History, 34 (1993), 169-77; Alice Kessler-Harris, "Treating the Male as 'Other': Redefining the Parameters of Labor History," Labor History, 34 (1993), 190-204. See also Ava Baron, Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991) and Laurie Caroline Pintar, "Herbert K. Sorrell as the Grade B Hero: Militancy and Masculinity in the Studios," Labor History, 37 (1996), 392-412.
10. Elizabeth Faue, "Gender and the Reconstruction of Labor History," Labor History, 34 (1993), 169-77; Alice Kessler-Harris, "Treating the Male as 'Other': Redefining the Parameters of Labor History," Labor History, 34 (1993), 190-204. See also Ava Baron, Work Engendered: Toward a New History of American Labor (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991) and Laurie Caroline Pintar, "Herbert K. Sorrell as the Grade B Hero: Militancy and Masculinity in the Studios," Labor History, 37 (1996), 392-412.
11. Joe William Trotter Jr., "African-American Workers: New Directions in U.S. Labor Historiography," Labor History 35 (1994) ,495-523. See also, Early Lewis, "Invoking Concepts, Problematizing Identities: The Life Charles N. Hunter and the Implications for the Study of Gender and Labor," Labor History, 34 (1993), 292-308.
12. Joe William Trotter Jr., "African-American Workers: New Directions in U.S. Labor Historiography," Labor History 35 (1994) ,495-523. See also, Early Lewis, "Invoking Concepts, Problematizing Identities: The Life Charles N. Hunter and the Implications for the Study of Gender and Labor," Labor History, 34 (1993), 292-308.
13. Kessler-Harris, "Treating the Male as 'Other'," 196.
14. Gail Bederman, "'Civilization,' The Decline of Middle-Class Manliness, and Ida B. Wells' Anti-lynching Campaign," Radical History Review, 52 (1992), 13.
15. Du Bois quoted in Michael Honey, Southern Labor and Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 20. Honey explains that employer control over unskilled black labor led to greater control over unskilled white labor, because a low floor for black wages reduced wages across the board. Michael Honey, "Martin Luther King, Jr., the Crisis of the Black Working Class, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike," in Robert H. Zieger, ed., Southern Labor in Transition, 1940-1995 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997). For an examination of racial divisions within the American working class in an earlier period, see David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991).
16. Du Bois quoted in Michael Honey, Southern Labor and Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 20. Honey explains that employer control over unskilled black labor led to greater control over unskilled white labor, because a low floor for black wages reduced wages across the board. Michael Honey, "Martin Luther King, Jr., the Crisis of the Black Working Class, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike," in Robert H. Zieger, ed., Southern Labor in Transition, 1940-1995 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997). For an examination of racial divisions within the American working class in an earlier period, see David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991).
17. Du Bois quoted in Michael Honey, Southern Labor and Civil Rights: Organizing Memphis Workers (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 20. Honey explains that employer control over unskilled black labor led to greater control over unskilled white labor, because a low floor for black wages reduced wages across the board. Michael Honey, "Martin Luther King, Jr., the Crisis of the Black Working Class, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike," in Robert H. Zieger, ed., Southern Labor in Transition, 1940-1995 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1997). For an examination of racial divisions within the American working class in an earlier period, see David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London: Verso, 1991).
18. For analyses of labor and racial tensions in the South during the first half of this century that were framed in terms of struggles for manhood and womanhood, see Bryant Simon, "The Appeal of Cole Blease of South Carolina: Race, Class, and Sex in the New South," The Journal of Southern History, 42 (1996), 1-30; and Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South," in Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki Ruiz, eds., Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History (New York: Routledge, 1990), 298-321. The CIO did successfully unionize black and white workers in the Firestone, Ford, and Fisher plants during World War II. The Firestone union leaders lent their meeting hall to the sanitation workers during the 1968 strike. For examples of successful union organization in other southern cities during this period, see Roben Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein, "Opportunities Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement," Journal of American History, 75 (1988), 786-811.
19. For analyses of labor and racial tensions in the South during the first half of this century that were framed in terms of struggles for manhood and womanhood, see Bryant Simon, "The Appeal of Cole Blease of South Carolina: Race, Class, and Sex in the New South," The Journal of Southern History, 42 (1996), 1-30; and Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South," in Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki Ruiz, eds., Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History (New York: Routledge, 1990), 298-321. The CIO did successfully unionize black and white workers in the Firestone, Ford, and Fisher plants during World War II. The Firestone union leaders lent their meeting hall to the sanitation workers during the 1968 strike. For examples of successful union organization in other southern cities during this period, see Roben Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein, "Opportunities Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement," Journal of American History, 75 (1988), 786-811.
20. For analyses of labor and racial tensions in the South during the first half of this century that were framed in terms of struggles for manhood and womanhood, see Bryant Simon, "The Appeal of Cole Blease of South Carolina: Race, Class, and Sex in the New South," The Journal of Southern History, 42 (1996), 1-30; and Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, "Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South," in Ellen Carol DuBois and Vicki Ruiz, eds., Unequal Sisters: A Multicultural Reader in U.S. Women's History (New York: Routledge, 1990), 298-321. The CIO did successfully unionize black and white workers in the Firestone, Ford, and Fisher plants during World War II. The Firestone union leaders lent their meeting hall to the sanitation workers during the 1968 strike. For examples of successful union organization in other southern cities during this period, see Roben Korstad and Nelson Lichtenstein, "Opportunities Lost: Labor, Radicals, and the Early Civil Rights Movement," Journal of American History, 75 (1988), 786-811.
21. Honey, "Martin Luther King, Jr., the Crisis of the Black Working Class, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike," 154, 156. Beifuss, 33.
22. 11 Beifuss, 35.
23. Ibid., 19.
24. Commercial Appeal (Memphis), Feb. 2, 1968.
25. Beifuss, 30.
26. Ibid., 32. Dues check-off is a procedure that allows union members' dues to be taken directly out ot their pay checks in the same way that state and federal taxes are taken out. This procedure ensures that all union members pay their dues on time.
27. Reverend Ezekial Bell interviewed by Bill Wilson and Jerry Viar, May 28, 1968, University of Memphis, Mississippi Valley Collection #178, Sanitation Strike, Box 20 (Folder 14), 16. From now on, citations from this collection will be MVC Box # (Folder #) pages. Ms. Crenshaw remained an outspoken participant in the strike leadership as a member of the strategy committee for the ministers' group Community on the Move for Equality (COME).
28. Councilperson Gwen Awsumb interviewed by David and Carol Lynn Yellin and Anne Trotter, April 26, 1968, MVC 20(6), 8-9.
29. Richard Lentz, "Sixty-Five Days in Memphis: A Study of Culture, Symbols, and the Press," Journalism Monographs, 98 (1986), 10-11. Lentz shows how the two Memphis papers, which he characterizes as moderate during the desegregation of public facilities in the early 1960s, portray Ciampa as the quintessential northern "outsider," the carpetbagger.
30. Earl Green Jr., "Labor in the South: A Case Study of Memphis, The 1968 Sanitation Strike and Its Effect on the Urban Community" (Unpublished PhD dissertation, New York University, 1980), 170. Demands as of Feb. 20, 1968.
31. Gerald McKnight, "The 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike and the FBI: A Case Study in Urban Surveillance," South Atlantic Quarterly 83 (1984), 142.
32. Beifuss, 46.
33. Muddy Waters, His Best, 1947 to 1955: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection, MCA CHD-9370. For a song with similar themes, see Waters's "Hoochie Coochie Man." For a thorough analysis of masculinity and gender in the blues, see Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 72-79, 143.
34. Muddy Waters, His Best, 1947 to 1955: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection, MCA CHD-9370. For a song with similar themes, see Waters's "Hoochie Coochie Man." For a thorough analysis of masculinity and gender in the blues, see Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 72-79, 143.
35. Muddy Waters, His Best, 1947 to 1955: The Chess 50th Anniversary Collection, MCA CHD-9370. For a song with similar themes, see Waters's "Hoochie Coochie Man." For a thorough analysis of masculinity and gender in the blues, see Brian Ward, Just My Soul Responding: Rhythm and Blues, Black Consciousness, and Race Relations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 72-79, 143.
36. Beifuss, 75-84, and Bell interview, MVC 21(77), 22. Memphis had just instituted the mayor and city council system of government. The council members were not sure who had the final say in a strike of municipal employees. They decided to pass the political buck on to the mayor.
37. Beifuss, 86.
38. Ed Gillis interviewed by David Yellin and Bill Thomas on June 2, 1968. MVC 21(77), 36.
39. David Appelby, Allison Graham, and Stephen John Ross, producers of the film At the River I Stand, California Newsreel, San Francisco, California.
40. Green, 180-182 and Beifuss, 102-103.
41. Joan Beifuss, I Am A Man: Photographs of the 1968 Memphis Sanitation Strike and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (Memphis: Memphis Publishing Company, 1993), 62.
42. Transcription of King's first speech at the Mason Temple on March 18, 1968, MCV 22(121), 6.
43. Ibid., 7.
44. At one point during the movement, King reportedly said, "The primary obligation of women is motherhood." For the quote, see Adam Fairclough's To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. (Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1987), 50.
45. Interview with Juanita Abernathy in author's possession. Mrs. Abernathy noted that the only females who were regularly present at SCLC executive staff meetings, Septima Clark and Dorothy Cotton, were often asked to take notes. Clark and Cotton directed the Citizenship Education Program. This was one of the few avenues to leadership for women in SCLC, because it paralleled a "feminine" occupation in the larger society, the teaching profession.
46. David Appelby, Allison Graham, and Stephen John Ross, "At the River I Stand," a film by California Newsreel.
47. Ibid., and interviews with Hosea Williams and R. B. Cottonreader in author's possession.
48. Ibid., and interviews with Hosea Williams and R. B. Cottonreader in author's possession.
49. Calvin Taylor interviewed by Jerry Viar and Bill Thomas on August, 17, 1968, MVC 24(234), 18; and Beifuss, 131-132.
50. Taylor interview, MVC 24(234), 40.
51. Ibid., 34.
52. Beifuss, 131.
53. Taylor interview, MVC 24(234), 7.
54. Beifuss, 219.
55. Lawson interview on July 8, 1970, MVC 22(141), 17.
56. Reverend James Lawson interviewed by Joan Beifuss and Bill Thomas on August 21, 1969, MCV 22(135), 44. Lawson argued that people had always questioned the tactics of nonviolence in the movement: "The same question that you get now from among young people about nonviolence, I got them ten years ago from old and young.... There has never been an acceptance of the nonviolent approach. And this is why I dismiss those commentators, who say, you know, "'The Negro accepted nonviolence once and now he doesn't.' This is nonsense" (MVC 22(134), 4).
57. Reverend James Lawson interviewed by Joan Beifuss and Bill Thomas on August 21, 1969, MCV 22(135), 44. Lawson argued that people had always questioned the tactics of nonviolence in the movement: "The same question that you get now from among young people about nonviolence, I got them ten years ago from old and young.... There has never been an acceptance of the nonviolent approach. And this is why I dismiss those commentators, who say, you know, "'The Negro accepted nonviolence once and now he doesn't.' This is nonsense" (MVC 22(134), 4).
58. Beifuss, 159. Reverend Richard Moon interviewed by Judy Schultz, Jerry Viar and Joan Beifuss May 29, 1968, MVC 28(179), 9-10.
59. Maxine Smith interview, MVC 24(217), 30. Joan Beifuss has a slightly different version of this story, in which the police officer called the female NAACP workers "Black Bitches." At the River I Stand, 231.
60. Maxine Smith interview, MVC 24(217), 30. Joan Beifuss has a slightly different version of this story, in which the police officer called the female NAACP workers "Black Bitches." At the River I Stand, 231.
61. For an excellent discussion of the controversy over self-defense and issues of masculinity in the NAACP, see Tim Tyson, "Robert F. Williams, 'Black Power,' and the Roots of the African American Freedom Struggle," Journal of American History, 85 (1998), 540-570.
62. Beifuss, 248.
63. Commercial Appeal, March 31, 1968, 6; and Lentz, "Sixty-Five Days in Memphis," 29-30.
64. Commercial Appeal, March 31, 1968, 6; and Lentz, "Sixty-Five Days in Memphis," 29-30.
65. Taylor interview, MVC 24(135), 41; Beifuss, 253. Taylor remembered that when King entered the room, "it seemed like all of a sudden there was a real rush of wind and everything just went out that was bad and peace and calm just settled over everything." MVC 24(135), 50.
66. Taylor interview, MVC 24(135), 41; Beifuss, 253. Taylor remembered that when King entered the room, "it seemed like all of a sudden there was a real rush of wind and everything just went out that was bad and peace and calm just settled over everything." MVC 24(135), 50.
67. Martin Luther King Jr., "I've Been to the Mountaintop" (San Francisco: Harper Collins Publishing, 1968 and 1994), 12-13.
68. King, "I've Been to the Mountaintop," 7. SCLC leaders like Jesse Jackson used these same ideas to win a hospital workers' strike in Charleston in 1969 with the slogan "I Am Somebody." See Leon Fink and Brian Greenberg, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of the Hospital Workers' Union, Local 1199 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).
69. King, "I've Been to the Mountaintop," 7. SCLC leaders like Jesse Jackson used these same ideas to win a hospital workers' strike in Charleston in 1969 with the slogan "I Am Somebody." See Leon Fink and Brian Greenberg, Upheaval in the Quiet Zone: A History of the Hospital Workers' Union, Local 1199 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989).
70. Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 288.
71. Almost one million dollars of property damage and three deaths resulted from the chaos in Memphis after King's death, but other urban areas witnessed more destruction and even heavier casualties. Honey, "Martin Luther King, Jr., the Crisis of the Black Working Class, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike," 166.
72. J. Edwin Stanfield, "In Memphis: Mirror to America?" (Atlanta: Southern Regional Council, Inc. 1968), 5; and Selma Seligman Lewis, "Social Religion and the Memphis Sanitation Strike" (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Memphis State University, 1976), 131.
73. J. Edwin Stanfield, "In Memphis: Mirror to America?" (Atlanta: Southern Regional Council, Inc. 1968), 5; and Selma Seligman Lewis, "Social Religion and the Memphis Sanitation Strike" (Unpublished PhD dissertation, Memphis State University, 1976), 131.
74. Beifuss, 150.
75. Quote is by Bob James. David Appelby, Allison Graham, and Stephen John Ross, "At the River I Stand" a film by California Newsreel.
76. Beifuss, 163.
77. Ibid., MVC 20(8), 24. Prior to the misquote in the paper, Awsumb had received calls from black women who also disagreed with her position, but she did not note what those callers said.
78. Ibid., MVC 20(8), 24. Prior to the misquote in the paper, Awsumb had received calls from black women who also disagreed with her position, but she did not note what those callers said.
79. Richard Moon interviewed by Judy Schultz, Jerry Viar, and Joan Beifuss on May 29, 1968. MVC 28(179), 19.
80. After the strike, women in Memphis organized to tackle their own issues. Some of the female supporters of the strikers organized as the Concerned Women of Memphis in 1968. This group pressured Memphis leaders to reach a relatively quick settlement in a hospital strike that followed the sanitation strike. Lawson interview on Sept. 23, 1969, MVC 22(137), 29. For more information on the Concerned Women of Memphis, see a publicity pamphlet and summary in MVC 7(42) - Item #21.
81. After the strike, women in Memphis organized to tackle their own issues. Some of the female supporters of the strikers organized as the Concerned Women of Memphis in 1968. This group pressured Memphis leaders to reach a relatively quick settlement in a hospital strike that followed the sanitation strike. Lawson interview on Sept. 23, 1969, MVC 22(137), 29. For more information on the Concerned Women of Memphis, see a publicity pamphlet and summary in MVC 7(42) - Item #21.
82. For an analysis of black women's relationship to the movement, see Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: William and Morrow Company, Inc., 1984).
83. Speeches on "Maids" from St. Mary's Episcopal School for Girls. University of Memphis, Mississippi Valley Collection #178, Sanitation Strike, 23 (209).
84. Ibid.
85. Mr. and Mrs. L.C. Reed interviewed by Bill Thomas on July 15, 1968. (Mrs. Reed's first name not given.) MVC 23(203), 18.
86. Smith interviewed on June 13, 1968, MVC 24(217), 35.
87. Reverend Richard Moon interview, MVC 28 (178), 28.
88. Wills, "Martin Luther King Is Still On the Case," 101. For more on women's roles in the movement see Vicki L. Crawford, Jacquelyn Anne Rouse, and Barbara Woods, eds., Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941-1965 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); and Charles Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), especially Chapter Nine, "A Woman's War."
89. Wills, "Martin Luther King Is Still On the Case," 101. For more on women's roles in the movement see Vicki L. Crawford, Jacquelyn Anne Rouse, and Barbara Woods, eds., Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941-1965 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); and Charles Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), especially Chapter Nine, "A Woman's War."
90. Wills, "Martin Luther King Is Still On the Case," 101. For more on women's roles in the movement see Vicki L. Crawford, Jacquelyn Anne Rouse, and Barbara Woods, eds., Women in the Civil Rights Movement: Trailblazers and Torchbearers, 1941-1965 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993); and Charles Payne, I've Got the Light of Freedom: The Organizing Tradition and the Mississippi Freedom Struggle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995), especially Chapter Nine, "A Woman's War."
91. Green, 315-316.
92. David Appelby, Allison Graham, and Stephen John Ross, "At the River I Stand" a film by California Newsreel.
93. Hosea Williams interview in author's possession. In this quote, Williams exhibits the disparity between the language of 1968 and 1996 - the tension between the "rights of man" and "human rights" - when he says that "a man is someone [that] makes his or her own decisions."
94. Honey, "Martin Luther King, Jr., the Crisis of the Black Working Class, and the Memphis Sanitation Strike," 167-168.
95. Henry P. Liefermann, "A Year Later in Memphis, Nation, March 31, 1969, 401-403.
96. William L. Van Deburg, New Day in Babylon: The Black Power Movement and American Culture, 1965-1975 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 97.