Скачать или смотреть 1968 SPECIAL REPORT: "MEMPHIS MLK GARBAGE STRIKE RIOT"

On March 28, King and Reverend Lawson led strikers and supporters in a march in downtown Memphis. City officials estimated that 22,000 students skipped school to participate in the march. King arrived late to find a massive crowd on the brink of chaos, causing Lawson and King to call off the demonstration as violence erupted.


After peacefully marching for several blocks, singing "We Shall Overcome", Black armed men with iron pipes and bricks, and carrying signs, began smashing windows and looting along the stores.


Police immediately reacted to the riot, moving into the crowd with nightsticks, mace, teargas, and gunfire. They arrested 280 individuals and 60 were reported injured, most of them Black. Lawson told the demonstration participants to return to Clayborn Temple. The police followed the crowd back to the church where they released tear gas and clubbed people.


In the midst of the chaos, a police shot and killed sixteen-year-old Larry Payne. Witnesses said Payne had his hands raised as the officer pressed a shotgun to Payne's stomach and fired it. That same night Loeb declared martial law and authorized a 7 pm curfew, bringing about 4000 National Guardsmen.

On April 2, Payne's funeral was held in Clayborn Temple. Despite police pressure to have a private closed-casket funeral in their home, the family held the funeral at Clayborn and had an open casket. Following the funeral, the sanitation workers marched peacefully downtown.