By February 21, the sanitation workers established a daily routine of meeting at noon with nearly a thousand strikers and then marching from Clayborn Temple to downtown. On February 22, workers and their supporters performed a sit in at city hall where they pressured the City Council to recognize their union and recommend wages to increase. The mayor rejected the request. The first large-scale protest of Loeb's policies came on February 23. It was given the moniker “mini riot” after it turned violent. Gwen Robinson Awsumb, the city council liaison to the mayor, accused Loeb of deliberately impeding the council's progress in resolving the strike. The marchers faced police brutality in the forms of mace, tear gas, and billy clubs. On February 24, while addressing the strikers after a "police assault" on their protests, Reverend James Lawson said, "For at the heart of racism is the idea that a man is not a man, that a person is not a person. You are human beings. You are men. You deserve dignity." Rev. Lawson's comments embody the message behind the iconic placards from the sanitation workers' strike, "I Am A Man".
