Elmore Nickleberry pinned his hopes to Martin Luther King
One of the last striking sanitation workers of Memphis died on December 30th, aged 92
That evening of April 3rd 1968, round Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee, a mighty storm was blowing. The tin roof banged in the rain, and the rafters blew against each other. Yet the vast hall was packed, because people had come to hear another mighty voice, Martin Luther King’s, thundering out among them. Somewhere in that crowd was Elmore Nickleberry, wiry and neat, listening hard. What he heard was a great man who could change things, where hundreds of black Memphians could not.
This article appeared in the Obituary section of the print edition under the headline “From boys to men”
Obituary January 20th 2024
From the January 20th 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionDiscover more
Celeste Caeiro’s small gesture named a revolution
The Portuguese restaurant worker and single mother died on November 15th, aged 91
Frank Auerbach aimed only at one memorable image
Britain’s most obsessive figurative painter died on November 11th, aged 93
Baltazar Ushca climbed Chimborazo twice a week
The last Ecuadorean ice-harvester died on October 11th, aged 80
Quincy Jones ruled popular music for half a century
The producer, arranger and film-score writer died on November 3rd, aged 91
Lily Ebert lived to share her story of Auschwitz
The Holocaust survivor and memoirist died on October 9th, aged 100
Fethullah Gulen tried to transform Turkey in the subtlest ways
The scholar, teacher and activist died on Ocrober 20th, aged 83