Going Down Jericho Road

The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King's Last Campaign

15 February 2008

Description

The definitive history of the epic struggle for economic justice that became Martin Luther King Jr.'s last crusade.

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.

Awards

Winner — International Labor History Association Book Award, 2008

Winner — Organization of American Historians Liberty Legacy Award, 2008

Winner — Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, 2008

Also By: Michael K. Honey View all by author...

Paperback

9780393330533

140 x 208 mm • 640 pages

£15.99

Add to Basket

Ebook

9780393078329

Powered by Glassboxx

£15.99

Add to Basket