Under segregation, blacks could attend the Overton Park Zoo on Thursdays. The rest of the week and holidays, the zoo was for whites only.

William Edwin Jones pushes eight-month-old daughter Renee in protest on Main Street in Memphis, August 1961.

A security guard watches garbage workers empty trash into a compressor-equipped truck, as the Memphis strike enters its third day, on February 15, 1968.

The striking garbage workers staged daily marches carrying signs stating their emotional slogan: “I Am a Man.”

MLK arrives at the Memphis airport on the morning of April 3 with aides (l to r) Andrew Young, Ralph Abernathy, and Bernard Lee.

Jubilant strike leaders celebrate at the end of MLK’s speech in Mason Temple on March 18, 1968.

Mason Temple offered a cavernous forum, where MLK delivered two dramatic speeches to pro-strike rallies, including this one on March 18, 1968.

Rev. Jim Lawson leads strike supporters in a boycott against downtown stores. The sign refers to Mayor Henry Loeb.

At six foot five, Mayor Henry Loeb cut a physically imposing figure. He proved to be an implacable foe of the garbage workers’ strike.

MLK is jostled by an unruly crowd as he prepares to lead a march on behalf of the garbage workers, on March 28, 1968.

When he was traveling, King carried a briefcase stuffed with papers that reflected his widely varied interests, ranging from food production in the Mideast to the causes of urban rioting in the United States.

As US marshal Cato Ellis serves an injunction on MLK, King and his aides (l to r), Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, James Orange, and Bernard Lee, share a laugh to lighten the mood.

MLK’s aide Jesse Jackson shares a private thought with him on the platform of Mason Temple during the pro-strike rally on April 3 1968.

MLK delivers his “Mountaintop” speech at Mason Temple on the evening of April 3, 1968.

Arriving in the Memphis federal courthouse on April 4, 1968, to contest an injunction against MLK was Lucius Burch, his legal team, and their witnesses. Pictured, from left, Rev. James Lawson, SCLC executive director Andrew Young, and lawyers Burch, Charles Newman, and W. J. Michael Cody.