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| Elmore Nickelberry |
In 1964 Elmore Nickelberry was 32 years old. He
was the father of five children. He was a hero of sorts, but no one knew
it or if they did know it, they gave him no recognition for his sacrifice and
service to his country.
That year, Nickelberry was discharged from the
United States Army, where he had served in the early stages of America's
involvement in the Vietnam War. His release was bitter sweet.
On the one hand he was released from his tour of
duty as President Lyndon Johnson was preparing to escalate America's
involvement in Southeast Asia. But in 1964 he was unemployed and had to find a
way to support his family back home in Memphis, Tennessee without the benefit
of his Army wages.
It was hard for a Black man to find work,
meaningful or otherwise in Memphis in the 1960s. Nickelberry found two menial
part time jobs which required him to work during the night hours. He was
constantly seeking a daytime job to replace the two part time jobs he had.
Each morning after completing his shift on the
second part time job, Nickelberry would look for a full time job with day
hours. The Memphis Sanitation Department had full time jobs that he could work
during the day. The work conditions were very filthy; it was hard labor and
demeaning to the honor and dignity of a military hero.
Nevertheless, Nickelberry sought a job with the
Memphis Sanitation Department as a garbage man. At the very least the job would
allow him to be at home with his family at night so that he could offer his
family the protection that he had rendered to Vietnamese families during his
tour of duty.
The problem with this idea was that Memphis had
about as many Negroes as it wanted to pay on its sanitation trucks and they
were not in any hurry to hire anymore Negroes to pick up garbage in the city.
The department was content with working the ones they had very hard.
For a period of two weeks Nickelberry would leave his second
job every day and go to stand in a line with other Negro men in front of the
sanitation department office seeking a chance to apply for a job to pick up
garbage on the side of streets made famous by W. C. Handy, Elvis and B. B.
King.
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| With Bernard Lafayette |
"It would get hot out there,"
Nickelberry said recently at the Peabody Hotel where he was the guest of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference during their 59th National Convention.
"It was hot out there. I was tired and I got
hungry, but I stood in that line. I was used to standing in formation from the
Army, so it was not a big problem for me to do. Then one day a white fellow
came out of the office," he said.
"Boy, you been standing out here for two
weeks, aint you," the white fellow queried?"
"Yes sir, I sure have," Nickelberry
said to the sanitation employee.
"Come over here, I think I can find a job
for you," the staffer said.
The next day, Nickelberry was on the back of a
garbage truck, jumping off to pick up garbage cans and dump them into the truck
and jumping back on the truck for the next stop.
The job was as bad as it looks from the to any reasonable
observer: sweaty, stinky, low paying, unsanitary; and supervised by a mean
spirited white boss.
By the time that Nickleberry had spent four years
on the job, Black sanitation workers had become increasingly vocal in
expressing concerns about theire working conditions. It was now 1968, and the
only job a Black man could get in the Sanitation Department was on the back of
the truck. There were no white garbage men working with Black crews. However, all
of the garbage truck drivers were white.
On February 1, 1968 two sanitation workers were
accidentally killed on a sanitation truck. Their deaths led sanitation workers
to organize for better working conditions.
First and foremost these workers wanted to be
treated like the grown men that they were; as evidenced by the protest posters
they carried during the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike: "I Am A
Man," one placard proudly pronounced.
Nickelberry joined the picket line and endured
the wrath of Mayor Henry Loeb, III, an avowed segregationist, and the
sanitation department managers. When Loeb refused to negotiate with the
sanitation strikers they struck, bringing a halt to garbage collection in the
city.
The strike was supported by both Roy Wilkins,
President of the National Association of Colored People and Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr.
King had never become involved in a labor dispute,
and many of his confidants advised him against getting involved with the
sanitation strike. We know the rest of this story. King did travel to Memphis.
He got in the middle of this labor war. He was gunned down outside of room 306
of the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968.
Twelve days after King was murdered, Loeb met
with the sanitation workers and conceded to their core demands for better
working conditions, recognition of the union and a pay raise.
Following the strike, Nickelberry went back to
work on the back of the sanitation truck. Today Nickelberry is 85 years old,
and every work day since the strike ended in '68, he has been on a Memphis
Sanitation truck. The only difference is he now works as a driver.
"Dr. King gave his life for that strike, did
he die in vain," he was asked?
"Many things have changed, but there are a
lot more things that need to change," he said after a reflective moment.
"How much longer are you going to
work," a reporter asked Nickelberry during the SCLC conference.
"Oh, I don't know. I may retire next year.
It'll be 50 years since the strike," he said.
"You have worked this long, what are you going
to do in retirement," he was asked.
"I'll probably buy me a wide brimmed hat, a
pair of brogan shoes and travel out to California and do some fishing in the
Pacific Ocean," he said.
Harold Michael Harvey is an
American novelist and essayist. He is a Contributor at The Hill, SCLC National
Magazine, Southern Changes Magazine and Black College Nines. He can be
contacted at hmharvey@haroldmichaelharvey.com
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