The Item of the Month is a specially selected item or artifact (book, sign, photograph, etc.) that members of the University Libraries Special Collections department would like to highlight each month to show the breadth and variety of their collections.
April 2025 - This year marks the 57th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, TN, on April 4, 1968. Dr. King was in Memphis to support the striking workers of the Poor People's Campaign and the strike they were enduring to obtain equity, improved working conditions, and higher pay. The Special Collections department at the University of Memphis Library contains posters from the Sanitation Strike marches in their holdings from the collection “Memphis Search For Meaning Committee records.” The posters are artifactual evidence of individuals who attempted to peacefully march for sanitation worker’s rights. One can see shoe prints and asphalt/gravel embedded into the front and back of the posters. These details are visceral visuals that reflect the harrowing, and sometimes violent, journey that many strikers and marchers experienced during this time.
A succinct history of the events of April 1968 can be found on The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change’s website. The Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change is an interdisciplinary center at the University of Memphis.
To view these posters or the “Memphis Search For Meaning Committee records,” please contact the Special Collections department at specialcollections@memphis.edu or schedule an appointment online here.
To view Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech (with hand-written corrections and additions) at the fifth General Synod of the United Church of Christ in Chicago, Illinois, July 6, 1965, online please visit here or visit the 2nd floor of the University of Memphis Ned McWherter Library, outside the Administrative offices.
Text from this post is by Grace Neeley, Archivist/Librarian, Special Collections. She can be reached at gneeley@memphis.edu.
