Editor’s Note: This is the final installment of a two-part series about John Burl Smith and the Invaders.
By Wiley Henry
MEMPHIS, TN — John Burl Smith, Charles Cabbage, Coby Smith and others identifying themselves as the Invaders were embroiled in a conflict with local Black leaders working to end the Memphis sanitation strike in
1968.
The strike was called after sanitation workers Echol Cole and Robert Walker were crushed to death in the back of a garbage compactor Feb. 1, 1968. They were seeking shelter from that day’s downpour when the compactor malfunctioned.
“On inclement days, they would let the white workers go back to the locker room and send the Black workers home without pay,” Smith said. “Black workers tried to figure out what they could do to stay on the clock.”
On Feb. 12, 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers refused to show up for work at the Memphis Department of Public Works. They were demanding better working conditions, better pay, and union dues check-off.
Henry Loeb, the cantankerous mayor of Memphis who governed with a hardened heart, refused to recognize the strike and the union that represented the sanitation workers – Local 1733 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).
A number of strategy meetings was convened. “I started going down to the meetings,” said Smith, who was fully engaged in the fight to restore the dignity of the Black sanitation workers and improve their condition.
After speaking with them, Smith said they were unhappy with the contingent of local leaders negotiating with Loeb to end the strike. Their jobs were on the line; they were urged to go back to work.
Smith said he encouraged the strikers to stay the course. “I told them that if you go back, you’d be right back in the same place. If you go back to work, Loeb can do to you what he wants to do.”
Another meeting was convened at the Rubber Workers Union Hall in North Memphis. This was a secret meeting, he said. “[Some] of the workers came by my apartment, which served as the headquarters for the Black Organizing Project (to uplift the poor) and the Invaders. They told us what they had up.”
They decided to crash the meeting. “[But] they wouldn’t let us in,” said Smith, who was told by someone at the scene to go to the side door of the building if they wanted to get into the meeting.
After entering the building, Smith said Jerry Wurf, a U.S. labor leader and AFSCME’s president, was up speaking. He said Wurf was explaining to the assembly that Loeb had agreed with him to give the workers the union dues check-off.
“When I heard Jerry Wurf talking about them getting the dues check-off, I started shouting him down,” said Smith, making the point that the union had gotten what it wanted, “but the workers hadn’t gotten anything.”
His outburst forced security to eject him from the meeting.
The strike was nearing a crescendo and prompted the Rev. James Lawson, chairman of the strike committee and co-founder of COME (Community on the Move for Equality), to extend an invitation to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to come to Memphis and speak.
On March 18, 1968, Dr. King, president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, made his way to Memphis and spoke at Mason Temple Church of God in Christ in support of the sanitation strike. The throng of sanitation workers was convinced of Dr. King’s commitment, Smith noted.
“They (strike leaders) felt that by bringing Dr. King to Memphis, he would give them an image that was larger than the Invaders,” he said. “They thought Dr. King was going to come to town and do what they were doing. But he did the opposite.”
The Invaders were active participants in the strike, but Smith believed they were being marginalized by the strike committee and the local civil rights leaders who did not see the benefit of working with the militant group.
A meeting was held at Parkway Gardens Presbyterian Church during the month of March. The pastor was the Rev. Ezekiel Bell, a fireball preacher, civil rights activist, and founding president of the Memphis Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
“When Ezekiel Bell started talking about the city burning, I made a newsletter and put a diagram on the back of it on how to make a Molotov cocktail,” said Smith, noting to his army training. “While they were inside talking, we were outside passing out the newsletter with the Molotov cocktail in it.”
After that move, he said no one wanted to have anything to do with the Invaders. But that didn’t stop them. The march was set for March 28, 1968. Determined to make an impact, his group set out to recruit five-to-10,000 young marchers.
“We got teams of people together to go down in Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi,” he said. “[Teams] to go to colleges and high schools to recruit students to come to the march.”
Their efforts paid off. A groundswell occupied downtown Memphis and marched from Clayborne Temple to Beale Street to Main Street, where Memphis police, he said, were waiting for them. Dr. King was ushered to the front of the march before all hell broke loose.
Smith said he witnessed a scuffle between a police officer and a young Black man. “He (police) tried to hit the guy and hit a window. It sounded like an explosion. At that moment, police waded into the crowd [with mace and Billy clubs] and started hitting people.”
A riot commenced and more windows were shattered, forcing frantic marchers to run for their lives. Looters took advantage of the melee and left behind damaged property. “The Invaders were blamed for it,” he said.
Dr. King knew what happened, Smith said. “He gives Calvin Taylor (a young copy editor identified as an Invader) the message that he wants to meet with us.”
On April 4, 1968, the Invaders met with Dr. King. Since then, they’ve been trying to prove their innocence – that they were not the culprits that started the riot and that they were not trying to destroy Dr. King’s non-violent reputation.