As National Guard troops arrive in Memphis, the memory of thousands of them with bayonetted rifles and tanks in 1968 is still fresh for Joe Calhoun. Back then, he marched in the streets with sanitation workers and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
King had come to support some 1,300 predominantly Black sanitation workers striking to protest inhumane treatment after a malfunctioning garbage truck killed two laborers. King led a demonstration in late March, but it turned violent when police and protesters clashed and an officer fatally shot a 16-year-old. The National Guard quickly lined the streets in response.
