Echol Cole, 36, and Robert Walker, 30, were city sanitation workers killed on the rainy afternoon of February 1, 1968, at Colonial and Verne roads in East Memphis. A city rule kept crews from taking shelter in residential neighborhoods, and the state marker says they had no raincoats, so they climbed into the barrel of their truck. The compacting ram started up, apparently from a short circuit, and the two men died. A preliminary investigation pointed to a shovel falling onto the wiring. Union leader T.O. Jones had asked for that truck to be retired. Its stop button was on the outside. Laborers earned $1.60 an hour, drivers $1.90, with no sick leave, pension or insurance, and on rain days Black workers could be sent home with an hour or two of pay. Workers' compensation did not cover the men. The city paid one month's salary and $500 toward burial, which cost about $900, and Mayor Henry Loeb called it a moral obligation. Eleven days later, on February 12, most of the city's sanitation workers walked off the job. Their strike, and its signs reading I Am A Man, brought Martin Luther King Jr. to Memphis, where he was killed on April 4. The strike was settled on April 16. A two-sided Tennessee Historical Commission marker, dedicated on February 1, 2014, stands on Colonial Road a block north of Verne, in the residential neighborhood where it happened. Robert Walker's sisters attended.
Getting there
35.0922, -89.9035
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
Hear it from the road
Whistlestop is an audio tour guide app that tells you this story automatically when you drive past. No searching, no tapping, nothing to ask.
