Elmore Nickleberry pinned his hopes to Martin Luther King
One of the last striking sanitation workers of Memphis died on December 30th, aged 92
That evening of April 3rd 1968, round Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, a mighty storm was blowing. The tin roof banged in the rain, and the rafters blew against each other. Yet the vast hall was packed, because people had come to hear another mighty voice, Martin Luther King’s, thundering out among them. Somewhere in that crowd was Elmore Nickleberry, wiry and neat, listening hard. What he heard was a great man who could change things, where hundreds of black Memphians could not.
This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “From boys to men”
Obituary January 20th 2024
From the January 20th 2024 edition
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