JOHN YANG: We return to our series of conversations
about the life of the Reverend Martin Luther
King Jr., who was murdered 50 years ago this
week.
In his final days, Dr. King traveled to Memphis
to lend his voice to the city's black sanitation
workers, who were protesting poor working
conditions.
By the time he arrived in the city, they had
been on strike for more than six weeks.
Fred Davis served as the chair of Memphis
City Council's Public Works Committee and
helped negotiate an end to the strike.
He marched with Dr. King and was present for
the civil rights leader's final speech before
his assassination, when he declared, "I have
been to the mountaintop."
Judy spoke with him before she went to California.
JUDY WOODRUFF: When Dr. King came to Memphis,
what was the condition of the sanitation workers?
How were they doing?
FRED DAVIS, Former Chair, Memphis City Council:
They were not doing well at all.
They were making less than a dollar an hour.
And they were discriminated against, in the
sense that, even at that level, all of the
truck drivers were white.
All of the people who picked up the tubs and
took them to the truck were black.
The truck drivers, even though they were not
out in the rain and the heat and that kind
of thing, had showers.
The men didn't have showers.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The men who picked up the trash.
FRED DAVIS: The men who picked up the garbage
didn't have showers.
Sometimes, the tubs was putrefied when they
picked them up.
And all of that stuff was running down on
their clothes.
And most of them didn't have enough money
to buy a car.
And they would get on public transportation
with that kind of smell on them.
I heard one fellow say that, when he got home,
his wife made him change clothes outside before
he came in.
And that is the kind of conditions that they
were working under.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You were there for that speech
that he gave the night before he died.
Tell us about that.
FRED DAVIS: It was a very rainy night.
It was raining cats and dogs.
And the council members came in through the
side door.
The place was packed.
There was no capacity.
And I -- since there was no room out in the
audience, I climbed up some steps that was
going up to the edge of the stage.
So, that's how I can claim to be sitting on
the stage when he made that speech.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But Dr. King came, and you
heard the speech.
FRED DAVIS: And Dr. King came in.
There was no papers, no notes, no anything.
He just walked to the stage and started to
speak.
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR., Civil Rights Leader:
And I have seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you, but I want you
to know tonight that we as a people will get
to the promised land.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
JUDY WOODRUFF: Of course, that was a speech
that everyone remembers about Dr. King.
But the next time you came in contact or knew
what had happened was when he was shot...
FRED DAVIS: Right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: ... on April the 4th.
FRED DAVIS: We were in a meeting at the Claridge
Hotel across the street from city hall.
There were nine of us in that meeting.
And we had determined that we were going to
settle the strike that day.
We got a call from city hall, saying, turn
the television on.
And when we turned the television on, and
we heard what happened, there were three African-American
councilman altogether, but two of us were
this that room.
And we came loose.
I mean, it was heavy.
JUDY WOODRUFF: You have remained in Memphis
over all these years.
How much harder was it after he was gone?
And yet you keep going.
How?
FRED DAVIS: You have to keep going.
The problem doesn't go away.
As long as you are black in America, you have
problems, because it's more intense in some
areas than it is in other areas, but it is
there always.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Finally, if someone wants to
know, how are the sanitation workers doing
today in Memphis, Tennessee, compared to back
in the day, when Martin Luther King was trying
to help them, what would you say?
FRED DAVIS: I say the sanitation workers are
doing much better, but there is a way to go.
There has been some progress.
But the heart and the soul of Memphis and
the South is slow to change.
And that's what we have to deal with.
And when I say the heart and the soul, I mean
the attitudes of the powers that be to change.
One of the thing I have said is that you can't
keep a man in a ditch unless you stay in there
with him.
Now -- and that region is noted for the lowest
educational attainment, the highest morbidity
and mortality rate, the highest infant mortality
rate.
All of these things compound to make life
not as good as it could be in those areas.
And we have got to deal with that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Fred Davis, who was there with
Dr. King, working on everything that Dr. King
was working on in 1968, and you are still
there fighting the fight.
FRED DAVIS: Absolutely.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Thank you very much.
FRED DAVIS: Thank you.
JOHN YANG: Tomorrow night, we conclude our
series with special correspondent Charlayne
Hunter-Gault's conversation with entertainer
and King confidant Harry Belafonte.
