Echol Cole and Robert Walker

Sanitation workers commemorate strike that was followed by Martin Luther King’s assassination
By Andy Meek
February 1, 2018
MEMPHIS — Rain began to fall on a procession of sanitation workers Thursday afternoon as they commemorated the strike that Martin Luther King Jr. was supporting when he was assassinated here 50 years ago.

The weather was much the same on Feb. 1, 1968, which led two sanitation workers to seek shelter in the back of their garbage truck, where they were crushed to death — sparking a two-month strike for better worker safety.

Singing "We Shall Overcome," the group walked to the spot where Echol Cole and Robert Walker were killed, becoming martyrs whose deaths touched off a strike involving 1,300 black workers.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/sanitation-workers-commemorate-strike-that-was-followed-by-martin-luther-kings-assassination/2018/02/01/992a3aa6-07a1-11e8-8777-2a059f168dd2_story.html