When Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered 50 years ago on April 4, 1968, I was a third year Divinity School student and working as the evening cashier at one of the Duke dining halls. When I reported for work after Dr. King's death, all the Afro-American workers were on strike, and in a life defining moment for me, I told my supervisor that I would be on strike as well.
Duke students supported the strike by camping out on the quad in front of the Duke Chapel, refusing to go to classes and refusing to eat in the dining halls. The strike was settled when Duke finally agreed to increase the minimum wage to $1.60 by July 1, 1969, for nonacademic employees, mostly Afro-American, and agreed to establish a committee to discuss the implementation of collective bargaining.
I was disappointed that only a handful of Divinity School students participated in the strike. The 1960s brought dramatic change in our society around the issues of sex, interracial marriage, civil rights and the Vietnam War. But the response of most mainline churches and Duke Divinity was to "circle the wagons," maintain the status quo and remain as separate as possible from the wider culture.
In contrast, Dr. King challenged us to remain awake during the social revolution that was occurring and challenged us to participate responsibly in every way possible. The civil rights movement was shifting toward issues of economic justice in the late 1960s and Dr. King was in Memphis to support a sanitation worker's strike when he was assassinated.
Somewhere around 2,000 students participated in the strike at Duke in response to Dr. King's assassination. It required some courage and there were some risks, but for those who participated, it changed their lives. In my case, I went on to law school.
— Rock E. Welch M.Div '65
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