Baxter Leach, one of the former sanitation workers who spearheaded the "I Am A Man" movement, has died.

Leach succumbed to blood cancer Tuesday morning, WHBQ reported. He was 79 years old.

Leach moved to Memphis, Tennessee, in 1960 to seek a better life for himself and his family. He had been working as a sharecropper since he quit school at 14 years old. A job with the City of Memphis Public Works Department was a way out, but the conditions weren't any better.

"We didn`t have nowhere to wash our hands, go nowhere to sit down and eat nowhere. Had nowhere to take no shower, or nothing, nothing like that," he recalled to WREG in April 2018. To make matters worse, the pay was dismal.

"When I worked there, they weren't even making a dollar an hour," Leach added.

After two workers died from being crushed on the back of a truck in 1968, the workers went on strike. Leach was on the frontlines of the fight. Like other workers, he carried the iconic "I Am A Man" picket sign.

"That's what we was, a man, not no boy," Leach told The Memphis Commercial Appeal in 2018. "We were marching for our rights, marching for dignity."

The workers' efforts drew Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to the city, where he eventually died. King's assassination hurt Leach.

"I cried that night. It hurt my heart," he admitted to WREG.

The sanitation workers reached an agreement soon after King's death. Leach continued to advocate for labor rights until his retirement in 2005. He traveled around the country to do speeches and often punctuated his sentences with "I am a man."


Aside from his activism, Leach was a beloved husband and father of six children.

"He was a hard worker and a loving father," said his daughter Anita Leach.

"He and mom were known [in the neighborhood] as mom and dad to all kinds of people," said Michael Leach, his son. "He was a loving man and he cared about his kids and he cared about other kids. Out of all that I can remember coming out of living through [the strife of] the 1960s I never heard him talk down about any white people or call them names. He's always been about equal opportunity."

The National Civil Rights Museum gave its condolences on Tuesday.

"The National Civil Rights Museum is truly saddened by the passing of our friend and former Memphis sanitation worker, Mr. Baxter Leach. He was among the surviving sanitation workers we were fortunate to honor during the MLK50 Commemoration in 2018 and Freedom Award in 2017," the museum said in a statement.

"Mr. Leach generously participated in the museum's education programs and made himself available whenever he could to share the civil rights story in Memphis and the fight for human dignity," the statement continued. "He contributed so much to the knowledge of the struggle, making it real and tangible for the next generation. We will miss him tremendously."

Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland posted a tribute on Twitter.

"Getting to know the 1968 sanitation workers and their families has been an honor," Strickland tweeted. "My heart is heavy after learning of the passing of Baxter Leach. He was a great man whose courageous actions made Memphis better. On behalf of a grateful city, we send condolences to his family."

1968-Sanitation-Workers-StrikeBaxter-LeachI-Am-A-ManMemphis Sanitation Workers