Memphis in 1968 was ruled by a paternalistic "plantation mentality" embodied in its good-old-boy mayor, Henry Loeb. Wretched conditions, abusive white supervisors, poor education, and low wages locked most black workers into poverty. Then two sanitation workers were chewed up in the back of a faulty truck, igniting a months-long public-employee strike that would shake the nation. With novelistic drama and rich scholarly detail, this "first-rate chronicle" (Seattle Times) relates the riveting story of the 1968 strike that shook Memphis--and claimed Martin Luther King's life.