THE DAY INTERNATIONAL HARVESTER DIED IN MEMPHIS

This video could also be titled
THE DAY FRAYSER DIED

Footage from TV station WMC Action News-5 about that fateful day in 1983 when International Harvester announced it was soon to be closing its huge plant in Memphis, Tennessee.

This closing put over 650 people out of work in financially crippled north Memphis -- the areas known as Westside and Frayser -- and they haven't fully recovered to this day.

This 1983 video features the WMC-TV5 "Action News Tonight" opening theme, a very young Joe Birch, Brenda Wood, Dave Brown, and Jack Eaton. People interviewed include then Memphis mayor Dick Hackett, former Congressmen Ed Jones and Harold Ford, Sr., and others. The last part of the clip has an interview with David Cox, who was a machinist employed by IH at the time.

TRIVIA: At the beginning off the video you get to see some quick TV5 promos (Mid South Fair "ten wonderful days" and the Donahue Show) and hear the old channel 5 "showboat whistle" that was played directly before every program.