We Were Making History: Students, Sharecroppers, and Sanitation Workers in the Memphis Freedom Movement
We Were Making History: Students, Sharecroppers, and Sanitation Workers in the Memphis Freedom Movement
This chapter examines the rise of the freedom movement in Memphis involving black students, sharecroppers, and sanitation workers. It begins with an overview of politics in Memphis following the Supreme Court's 1955 decision in Brown v. Board of Education, followed by a discussion of the student sit-in movement and its emphasis on “Freedom Now!,” aimed at the immediate desegregation of all public facilities. The chapter then focuses on two movements that drove working-class blacks further into politics: the African Americans' renewed protest against police brutality and the sanitation workers' protests against the city's treatment of its all-black corps of garbage collectors. It also considers the role of popular music and radio and the burgeoning “youth market” in the intensification of activism that challenged segregated cultural institutions.
Keywords: freedom movement, Memphis, black students, sharecroppers, sanitation workers, politics, sit-in movement, desegregation, African Americans, police brutality
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