I have been interested in doing
more research on what Memphis was like during the Civil Rights Movement. I came
upon an interesting article by Robert Odell Jr. who also was a part of creating
the film “Take Me Back to Beale” which is 100 years of Beale Street history. I
am assuming we have all been to Beale street either during the day or at night.
And it is crazy to imagine that there were ever National Guardsmen in armored
tanks with 50-caliber machine guns rolling down Beale. This was in March 1968 during
the Sanitation Workers Strike. The sanitation workers were on strike to protest
the unsafe working conditions they had to deal with.
Beale was a completely different
place during this time. It was a hotspot for rioting, looting, violence and
killing during this strike. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Memphis on March 28th
1968 to lead the sanitation workers march. The march broke out into violence.
The police were aggressively going after protesters with night sticks, mace,
tear gas, and gunfire.
This photo really stuck out to me
when I first saw it while reading the article. Immediately, I was drawn to the
police officer who is trying to brutally hurt what appears to be a young
teenager. The facial expression on the police officers face is terrifying. To
have a facial expression of so much hate, towards another human being is just
unsettling. However, it was not until I read the caption to the picture. The caption
was “A police officer uses his nightstick
on a youth reportedly involved in the looting that followed the breakup of a
march led by Dr. King on March 28, in Memphis. Later that day, Larry Payne, the
16-year-old in the background was killed by police.”
Larry Payne was the only fatality. When
I did further research on Larry Payne, it was reported that he was killed by a
shotgun blast fired from a patrolman as he emerged from a basement in a housing
development[1]. The
violence that people, especially policemen, resorted to is tragic. What do you
guys think?
This is a very interesting topic to talk about. I have never thought of what Beale was like during the Civil Rights. Other areas of town I have thought of, but Beale never popped into my head. There was no Elvis Presley tourist attractions around, he was a current artist as Taylor Swift and Thomas Rhett are today. I quickly looked up the meaning of Beale Street and the first thing that popped up was "A street in a African-American section of Memphis". This was home to many African-Americans and their shops. Which is probably why police officers were hanging out on Beale because they knew that could use their authority there. It is sad that not many people know what Beale Street use to be like. I think there should be more historical sites, or plaques around Beale that explain what it use to be like.
ReplyDeleteI never really thought about how Memphis was during the Sanitation Strike, everything just gets overshadowed by the Lorraine Motel (although it is an extremely important place, for obvious reasons). You're completely right, although there is still much violence on Beale Street and constant police presence, I could never imagine seeing tanks and this type of setting on Beale Street. I also find myself thinking about how there are a few businesses on Beale, like Dyer's and Arcade, that were also on and around Beale during this time. These would be good places to have plaques or memorials of some kind to educate their customers about what happened there.
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