Joseph "Joe" C. Warren

In 1968, inside his home at 968 Meagher, Joe C. Warren, a city sanitation worker, hosted strategy meetings with fellow workers to plan a historic strike against the City of Memphis protesting the firing of 33 employees on charges of workplace violations. Warren and other strike planners became founding members of Local 1733 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the local number honored the 17 fired employees who were later rehired and the 33 originally terminated. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. supported the strike, declaring it exposed the need in Memphis and elsewhere for economic equality and social justice, and he came to Memphis twice to march alongside the sanitation workers. His first visit was in March, and he returned again in early April in anticipation of another demonstration planned for April 8. The strike was continuing on April 3 when King returned to Memphis, and that night he delivered his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address at Mason Temple. At that time Warren and other sanitation workers were under a court order forbidding the upcoming march. As the order was being reversed in court on April 4, King was preparing for dinner and stepped from his room onto the balcony at the Lorraine Motel, where he was assassinated. On April 16, after several days of rioting in Memphis and other cities, union leaders and city officials reached an agreement and the strike ended. Since then, the 1968 sanitation strike has been a landmark in the nation's history of economic justice and social equality, and Warren's commitment to stand up with others and declare "I am a man" helped improve working conditions for sanitation workers and advance civil rights in Memphis and beyond.

Memphis, Tennessee · United States