MEMPHIS, Tennessee, April 4—Alyson Kennedy (pictured in inset), Socialist Workers Party candidate for vice president, joined a march of thousands here today commemorating the 40th anniversary of a strike by Black sanitation workers, members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1733. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated April 4, 1968, a day after addressing a strike rally.

Sanitation workers told Kennedy that today they do not have a pension and that the city has hired many temporary workers who cannot join the union.

The march ended with a rally at the National Civil Rights Museum, site of the Lorraine Motel where King was shot. Republican presidential candidate John McCain was among the speakers, and he apologized for voting against a bill that would have made King’s birthday a holiday. After he spoke, a number of people began to chant “No justice, no peace.”

—JEANNE FITZMAURICE
AND LORETTA VAN PELT