A historic Black church in downtown Memphis that was the organizing point for Martin Luther King Jr.'s final campaign in 1968 caught fire early Monday morning and suffered significant damage.
“This morning we woke up to heartbreaking news: a devastating fire has ravaged one of our city's greatest treasures, Clayborn Temple,” Memphis Mayor Paul Young wrote in a statement posted to social media. “Clayborn is more than a historic building. It is sacred ground. It is the beating heart of the civil rights movement, a symbol of struggle, hope, and triumph that belongs not just to Memphis but to the world.” King was drawn to Memphis in 1968 to support some 1,300 predominantly Black sanitation workers who went on strike to protest inhumane treatment. Two workers had been crushed in a garbage compactor in 1964, but the faulty equipment had not been replaced. On Feb. 1, 1968, two more men, Echol Cole, 36, and Robert Walker, 30, were crushed in the compactor. The two men were contract workers, so they did not qualify for workmen’s compensation, and had no life insurance.
