PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — The groundbreaking of a new sanitation building in St. Pete Wednesday represents moving forward by honoring the past.
That history happened along 5th Avenue in 1968 when the late Joseph E. Savage led a sanitation workers' march.
"Joseph Savage was our Martin Luther King of the city of St. Petersburg," said his son, Abdul Karim Ali.
The strike led by Savage and his friend Benjamin F. Shirley started shortly after the assassination of Reb. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis. He was there supporting a local strike of Sanitation workers.
The St. Pete strike, which lasted four months, ended with the city council passing a law allowing the workers to former a union and the city rehired Savage as a crew chief.
"That movement that he led of over 200 and more bold and courageous individuals energized the city of St. Petersburg," said Ali.
Savage stayed with the city for 37 years.
Shirley spent 48 years with the Sanitation department, retiring as the department's first black director. Hence why the city's sanitation complex is named after Savage and the new administration building will be named after Shirley.
"It's a wonderful feeling," said Shirley's daughter, Katrina Harris.
It's not lost on her that the groundbreaking is happening in the middle of Black History month, nearly 55 years later.
"We can't afford to forget history. We have so much more work to do," she said. "1968 may seem like ago, but here we are in 2023… people want to be able to pick and choose what they want people to hear. People need to know the truth."
As long as the sanitation complex bears Savage's name and the administration building has Shirley's name, she said people in St. Petersburg "will also ways know the truth about 1968 and the hard work of those men."
