William Lucy, stalwart voice for labor and civil rights, dies at 90
Source: Washington Post
William Lucy, stalwart voice for labor and civil rights, dies at 90
He marched with striking sanitation workers in Memphis and helped devise a potent slogan: “I Am a Man.” Later he served as the No. 2 official at the public employee union AFSCME.
William Lucy, the longtime secretary-treasurer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, in 2011. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
By Harrison Smith
September 27, 2024 at 1:07 p.m. EDT
William Lucy, a stalwart of the labor and civil rights movements who campaigned against South African apartheid and was perhaps best known for aiding the 1968 sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis — notably by helping devise a potent slogan, “I Am a Man” — died Sept. 25 at his home in Washington. He was 90. ... His daughter Phyllis Lucy confirmed the death but did not cite a cause.
Although he often worked behind the scenes, Mr. Lucy was among the most influential Black leaders in organized labor. For nearly four decades, he served as the No. 2 official at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, a public sector union known as the AFSCME, promoting a vision of organized labor in which the fight for workers’ rights — a living wage, health-care benefits, on-the-job safety — was part and parcel of a broader fight for social justice.
{snip}
Working alongside the AFSCME’s longtime president, Jerry Wurf, Mr. Lucy helped grow union membership while championing the rights of women, African Americans, Asian Americans, and other workers who found themselves underpaid and undervalued. The group became a major force in American labor as membership rolls swelled from 550,000 in 1972, when Mr. Lucy was elected secretary-treasurer, to 1.4 million today.
{snip}
Civil rights leader Bayard Rustin points while talking with Mr. Lucy, left, as they organize a 1968 march in Memphis. (AP)
Mr. Lucy’s stature in the labor movement derived in large part from his work in Memphis, his hometown, where 1,300 Black sanitation workers walked off the job in February 1968. The men sought better pay, working conditions and an end to racial discrimination, going on strike after two of their colleagues were crushed to death by a malfunctioning garbage truck. ... When the strike began, Mr. Lucy was 34, working in Detroit for the national office of the AFSCME. The union’s leaders dispatched him to Memphis to see what was going on. ... “I figured I’d go, spend an hour or two, and come back,” he said in a 2018 lecture at Harvard, recalling how he left his car in the airport’s short-term lot before catching a flight to Tennessee. His car stayed there for 75 days. ... “I had,” he said, “the highest parking bill in the history of the union.”
{snip}
By Harrison Smith
Harrison Smith is a reporter on The Washington Post's obituaries desk. Since joining the obituaries section in 2015, he has profiled big-game hunters, fallen dictators and Olympic champions. He sometimes covers the living as well, and previously co-founded the South Side Weekly, a community newspaper in Chicago.follow on X @harrisondsmith
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/09/27/william-lucy-dead-labor/