Rain flooded the streets of Memphis on Feb. 1, 1968, a deluge that would alter history. Forced to work in the downpour that day, two sanitation workers, black men named Echol Cole and Robert Walker, sought shelter in the back of a garbage truck and were crushed when an electrical switch malfunctioned. That same day, nearly two dozen black sewer workers were sent home without pay while their white supervisors stayed on the clock.
Memphis’ sanitation workers would go on strike later that month, decrying the racism, low wages and horrible working conditions they had endured. The eight-week protest eventually led to the murder of Dr.