; Whereas, on March 7, 1968, the City Council voted to reject union dues checkoff for sanitation workers; Whereas, throughout March 1968, national civil rights leaders, including Roy Wilkins, Bayard Rustin, Ralph Abernathy, James Bevel, Andrew Young, and Jesse Jackson, among others, came to Memphis to rally the strikers; Whereas, on March 28, 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Reverend James Lawson of Centenary Methodist Church led a march from the gathering spot for sanitation workers at Clayborn Temple and on to Beale Street, which was marred by window-breaking and disintegrated into a riot as police responded with tear gas and gunfire; Whereas, also on March 28, 1968, 16-year-old Larry Payne was shot to death by a Memphis police officer, police arrested 280 mostly Black demonstrators, and the State legislature authorized a 7:00 p.m. curfew that was enforced by 4,000 members of the National Guard moving into Memphis; Whereas in response to the death of Larry Payne, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called the mother of Larry Payne, Lizzie, offering consolation, and vowed to visit Lizzie on the return of Dr. King to Memphis; Whereas, also on March 28, 1968, and in response to the promise of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to return to Memphis to lead a march based on the principles of nonviolence, the city obtained a temporary restraining order in Federal court forbidding such a march; Whereas in response to the temporary restraining order, AFSCME General Counsel Mel Wulf asked the firm of Burch, Porter and Johnson and attorneys Lucius E. Burch, Jr., David Caywood, Charles Newman, and W.J. Michael Cody to work on lifting the order to allow the march to proceed; Whereas Louis Lucas and Walter Bailey of the Ratner and Sugarmon firm were deeply involved in representing Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and striking workers for the duration of the labor dispute