"Say I am somebody." I am somebody. "I may be poor but I am somebody." I am somebody! "I may be hungry but I am somebody." l am somebody! Jesse Jackson
The Eastern Caravan arrived during the month of May after stopping off in New York City to pick up the Puerto Rico contingent. The Appalachian Trial Caravan was made up of people from Tennessee, Kentucky, the Virginias, and was a mixture of whites and blacks. Winding its way through 13 cities in the Deep South, the Southern Caravan made up of Mexicans and Southerners journeyed east. From California, New Mexico, and Oklahoma; the Western Caravan came with its Mexicans and Indians. The Northwest sent the Indian Caravan starting off in Oregon and passing through Washington with stops in Montana, North Dakota, and Minnesota. They all came in buses, beat-up cars and pickups, a “Freedom Train,” and even Mule trains. A cross-section of the nation’s regions; these people from all parts of America had one similarity, they were poor. In mass they followed their Freedom Roads from different parts of the country and descended upon Washington D.C. and with them they brought a list of demands for better education, jobs, homes, civil rights, and freedom. The incomes of the people ranged from $1.25/hour to nothing. The thousands who gathered in Washington D. C. erected a shanty town between the Lincoln and Washington Monuments calling it “Resurrection City.” They occupied this town from May 14 until June 24, 1968.
In 1967, Martin Luther King began to link the war in Vietnam as a detriment to increasing the prosperity of the poor in the US. Calling for a War on Poverty and using the President’s Commission on Civil Disorders as a basis, King called for a civil and non-violent Poor People’s March on Washington D.C. With such a March, he hoped to separate his Civil Right’s movement away from the Black Power movement of the time and make the Civil rights movement more of a class, human rights and economic struggle rather than that of one race. By shifting the emphasis to the economics of the poor and those living in poverty, King was hoping to force the country into recognizing the plight of the poor regardless of race thereby pushing Civil Rights for all. It was Bobby Kennedy who had told King to bring the poor people to Washington D.C. and King planned his Poor People’s March in three phases. The first phase would be the erection of a shanty-town within Washington, daily protests, and a march on Washington D.C.; the second phase would incorporate civil disorder and a large numbers of arrests in Washington; and the last effort would be a boycott of major corporations.
With the exception of Walther Reuther of the United Auto Workers; Unions, including the Memphis Sanitation Union and George Meany of the AFL-CIO, did not support the Poor People’s March on Washington D.C. Newspapers such as The Washington Post and the New York Times criticized the march as unjustified and placing Washingtonians and American’s rights in jeopardy. With Martin Luther King’s murder in April, the Poor People’s march still did not garner much support, and his untimely death lessened the impact of it with many calling it a failure. The March failed to attract the liberal, middle-class constituency’s support who were repulsed by the goals of the Poor People’s March which questioned the issues of class, the economics of a capitalistic way of life, and the skewing of resources towards those who were better off.
While many have pointed out The Poor People March’s failure, the March itself did bring to light the plight of 40 million people who were poor or living in poverty within the US. The March forced the middle class to recognize the issue and also their failure to support it. Not much has changed in today’s economy and the numbers of poor and those living in poverty has grown to ~120 million with a continued apathy of their plight by the middle class and those even more fortunate. Adding to the issues facing the success of the Poor People’s March was the death of Bobbie Kennedy on June 5, 1968. Besides King, Bobbie Kennedy was one of America’s poor biggest supporters and his campaign had pledged support of America’s poor.
During 28 of the 42 days of Resurrection City existence, it rained leaving its make-shift paths and roads quagmires of mud. Even so, while it existed, it had a police department, a village hall, a cultural center, a school, and even its. Finally on June 19th, 50,000 people marched in the “Solidarity March” on the Capital. It was there that Jesse Jackson gave his speech under the Lincoln Memorial:
“Whereas we stand in the shadows of Lincoln the Emancipator who freed us into capitalism without capital. Whereas we stand in a land of surplus food with 10 million starving citizens, and whereas the soil bank has become Holy Land. . . the land on which some men swim in wealth while others drown in tears from broken promises, destroyed dreams and blasted hopes. . . For the life we live and the life we love we vow to fight for a new sensitive and sensible economic order in that all men need a job or an income if they are to have human dignity; all men deserve a job or an income for it is not alone by men's work but by God's grace that America is so fertile and rich; And America can afford a job or an income for all men if she has the will to put healing programs over killing programs.”
Not much has changed since the last great march of the Civil Rights movement. It was on June 24, 1968; 1000 police converged on Resurrection City, its citizens dispersed, and the shanty-town bull-dozed. No one listened then and no one listens 40 years later on the same day.
“There go my people-I must catch up with them, for I am their leader.” - Mohandas Gandhi
<link> “Class Resurrection: The Poor People’s March of 1968 and Resurrection City”, Robert T, Chase
