Labor and civil rights icon, Bill Lucy, dies at 90

Bill Lucy, courtesy AFSCME

WASHINGTON —Longtime AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer and civil rights icon Bill Lucy, who helped assemble and lead the famous “I Am A Man” unionization drive and strike by Black sanitation workers in 1968 in Lucy’s hometown of Memphis, Tenn., died September 25 at his D.C. home. He was 90.

Lucy, who later co-founded and was the first president of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, helped the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., lead the marches for the strikers.

Lucy helped launch the Free South Africa Movement which put pressure on U.S. administrations to impose sanctions on the white nationalist apartheid minority regime there until it ceded full rights to South Africa’s Black majority. His role among civil rights organizations was so widespread that Ebony magazine often named Lucy one of the 100 most influential Black Americans.

“We’ve always known that there’s a crisis,” Lucy told AFSCME in his retirement speech in 2010. “It may be more intense now, but there’s always been a crisis for millions of people not as lucky as we are in this room. There’s a daily crisis in their lives, as they struggle to put bread on their tables, to put clothes on their backs, to have a roof over their heads. We have a responsibility to help them out.”

“Bill Lucy was a giant, one of the most accomplished and influential trade unionists ever–in any country, at any moment in history,” AFSCME President Lee Saunders said after Lucy died. “He did as much as anyone to advance the dignity of all working people here in the United States and around the world. He was one of our greatest warriors ever for civil rights, labor rights, and human rights.

“From his leadership in the 1968 Memphis sanitation strike to the founding of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists to his role in defeating and dismantling South African apartheid, he was a courageous trailblazer. On behalf of 1.4 million AFSCME members, I am so grateful for his visionary leadership from the moment he first joined our union nearly 70 years ago.”

Lost an icon

“Our movement has lost an icon,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler and Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond—labor’s highest-ranking African-American—said in a joint statement.

“Bill Lucy served as a brilliant strategist whose words instantly cut to the heart of an issue, a bridge across generations of our movement, and a leader in connecting the fights of working people all across the world.”

Shuler and Redmond said Lucy, then 34, “wrote four simple words ‘I Am a Man’ that would change the course of history in Memphis, and helped all Americans see the humanity of Black sanitation workers in their struggle for dignity and respect on the job.”

Lucy brought “that same clarity and force…to everything he did,” including AFSCME, CBTU, and leading the anti-apartheid movement, they added.

“Bill’s brilliance was in realizing, far ahead of most, the extraordinary potential our movement has when we stand together in spite of our differences–no matter our background, race, age, gender, or identity. He understood that oppression anywhere can lead to oppression everywhere. It is in that spirit that we will continue to lead and honor Bill every day.”

“Bill was not only a giant amongst giants in the national and international labor movement, but he was also a strong and fierce civil rights leader,” said the current CBTU President, the Rev. Terry Melvin.

“Bill was a supportive mentor to many within the U.S. and global labor, social, and civil rights movements. On a personal level, Bill was my ‘Father in the Movement,’ always supportive, corrective when needed, and all done with love and care.”

Son of a mechanic and a seamstress, “Lucy was more inclined to deflect praise about his accomplishments than to bask in it,” AFSCME said in a feature obit on its website.

In a 2019 interview, Lucy described his “lucky break” as “being able to develop some understanding, some skills, a little bit of commitment that was valuable in helping others find a way to join a struggle for a better life.”

Lucy started his union career while working in the Contra Costa County, Calif., Public Works Department, AFSCME said. There, he found a virtually powerless employee association—and set about changing it into a union. It became AFSCME Local 1675.

“In 1965, as president of the local, Lucy caught the attention of AFSCME President Jerry Wurf, who invited him the following year to work at union headquarters in Washington, tasking him with setting up the new Department of Legislation and Community Affairs,” AFSCME said.

In that role, he became involved with the Memphis march, garnering wide community support for the two-month strike which forced the racist city mayor into recognizing and bargaining with the union. Four years later, Lucy became AFSCME’s Secretary-Treasurer and also co-founded the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Mark Gruenberg

Award-winning journalist Mark Gruenberg is head of the Washington, D.C., bureau of People's World. He is also the editor of the union news service Press Associates Inc. (PAI). Known for his reporting skills, sharp wit, and voluminous knowledge of history, Mark is a compassionate interviewer but tough when going after big corporations and their billionaire owners.