At the River I Stand

[Omaha Steve]

Run time: 05:39 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzRUwwRQzVc   Posted on YouTube: October 15, 2009 By YouTube Member: californianewsreel Views on YouTube: 4251   Posted on DU: April 08, 2011 By DU Member: Omaha Steve Views on DU: 302

 

http://newsreel.org/video/AT-THE-RIVER-I-STAND



1994 Erik Barnouw Award for Best Documentary, Organization of American Historians

THE 1968 MEMPHIS SANITATION WORKERS STRIKE AND THE ASSASSINATION OF DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING

Stream the film for free April 4 - 11!

Memphis, Spring 1968 marked the dramatic climax of the Civil Rights movement. At the River I Stand skillfully reconstructs the two eventful months that transformed a strike by Memphis sanitation worker into a national conflagration, and disentangles the complex historical forces that came together with the inevitability of tragedy at the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This 58-minute documentary brings into sharp relief issues that have only become more urgent in the intervening years: the connection between economic and civil rights, debates over strategies for change, the demand for full inclusion of African Americans in American life and the fight for dignity for public employees and all working people.

In the 1960s, Memphis' 1,300 sanitation workers formed the lowest caste of a deeply racist society, earning so little they qualified for welfare. In the film, retired workers recall their fear about taking on the entire white power structure when they struck for higher wages and union recognition.

But local civil rights leaders and the Black community soon realized the strike was part of the struggle for economic justice for all African Americans. Through stirring historical footage we see the community mobilizing behind the strikers, organizing mass demonstrations and an Easter boycott of downtown businesses. The national leadership of AFSCME put the international union's full resources behind the strike. One day, a placard appeared on the picket lines which in its radical simplicity summed up the meaning of the strike: "I am a man."


FULL info at link.