Synopses & Reviews
Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic "plantation mentality" embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up like garbage in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a public employee strike that brought to a boil long-simmering issues of racial injustice. With novelistic drama and rich scholarly detail, Michael Honey brings to life the magnetic characters who clashed on the Memphis battlefield: stalwart black workers; fiery black ministers; volatile, young, black-power advocates; idealistic organizers and tough-talking unionists; the first black members of the Memphis city council; the white upper crust who sought to prevent change or conflagration; and, finally, the magisterial Martin Luther King Jr., undertaking a Poor People's Campaign at the crossroads of his life, vilified as a subversive, hounded by the FBI, and seeing in the working poor of Memphis his hopes for a better America.
Review
"Honey writes with a novelist's skill to make this critical chapter of our national history come alive." Seattle Times
Review
"This stunning combination of impeccable scholarship, enhanced by fascinating oral histories and a page-turning style, results in an important contribution to labor history and to the literature of Martin Luther King." Library Journal
Synopsis
Provides an in-depth history of the final crusade of Martin Luther King, Jr., against the economic injustices, racism, and lack of political power that marked 1968 Memphis and transformed the city into a struggle between the white upper crust that sought to prevent change and the black workers, activists, unionists, and black-power advocates that sought to bring about equality.
Synopsis
The definitive history of the epic struggle for economic justice that became Martin Luther King Jr.'s last crusade.
About the Author
Michael Honey is professor of ethnic, gender, and labor studies and American history at the University of Washington, Tacoma, and the author of two prize-winning books on labor and civil rights history. He lives in Tacoma.