Poor People's March on Washington
The Poor People's March on Washington was a significant demonstration aimed at highlighting the struggles of impoverished Americans. Initiated as part of Martin Luther King Jr.'s vision, the campaign sought to draw attention to the intertwining issues of poverty and the Vietnam War, which King believed were diverting necessary resources away from domestic welfare. Following King's assassination in 1968, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), under Ralph Abernathy's leadership, continued to organize the march in his memory.
Thousands of participants from diverse backgrounds converged in Washington, D.C., to create a temporary community known as Resurrection City on the National Mall. This encampment served not only as a protest site but also provided essential services like free food, medical care, and educational programs for its residents. Despite their efforts, which included marches to government agencies demanding an end to hunger, the campaign faced challenges, including harsh weather conditions that ultimately led to its dissolution. While the Poor People's Campaign resulted in some governmental responses, such as aid for low-income housing and food assistance, its overall impact was limited, reflecting the complex and persistent nature of poverty in America.
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Poor People's March on Washington
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign, carried out after King’s death, was a major mass-participation event designed to dramatize to the nation and the government the plight of the poor. By 1967, King had come to see the Vietnam War and the War on Poverty as inseparable issues: The war overseas was taking needed money and government attention away from the more important goal of ending poverty in the United States. The Poor People’s Campaign was designed to demonstrate the problem of poverty vividly and graphically by bringing thousands of poor Americans to Washington, D.C., to camp and lobby.
Organizing for this massive march on Washington was interrupted while King went to Memphis in support of a sanitation workers’ strike. While there, he was assassinated, the event stunning the movement and the nation. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), now led by Ralph Abernathy, decided to carry out King’s Poor People’s March in his honor and memory. From all parts of the nation, thousands of poor people of all races set out for Washington, arriving five weeks after King’s death. They built Resurrection City, a campground-city, on the Washington Mall.
In the few weeks of its existence, Resurrection City provided “freedom schools” and free food and medical care for its poor residents. Demands were made on the government through such actions as marching to the Department of Agriculture and demanding an end to American hunger in a land of such plenty. Jesse Jackson, a longtime member of the SCLC and King associate, came into prominence, leading marches and giving speeches. Running a city sapped all the energy from the SCLC, however; the group had no time to plan other actions and no clear agenda. Then it began to rain. The rain and mud made life in Resurrection City miserable, and the protesters soon had to abandon the project.
A few government actions can be attributed to the Poor People’s Campaign—provision of food to some of the country’s neediest counties, some funding for low-income housing, and additional funds for the Office of Economic Opportunity—but, in general, the campaign had only very limited success.
Bibliography
Hampton, Henry, Steve Fayer, and Sarah Flynn. "Resurrection City, 1968: 'The End of a Major Battle.'" Voices of Freedom: An Oral History of the Civil Rights Movement from the 1950s through the 1980s. New York: Bantam, 1991. Print.
Howard, Marilyn K. "Poor People's Campaign." The Civil Rights Movement in America: From Black Nationalism to the Women's Political Council. Ed. Peter B. Levy. Santa Barbara: Greenwood, 2015. Print.
Kirk, John A. "The Poor People's Campaign and Memphis, 1967–1968." Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. London: Routledge, 2013. Print.
Mantler, Gordon Keith. "Race and Resurrection City." Power to the Poor: Black-Brown Coalition and the Fight for Economic Justice, 1960-1974. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2013. 121–53. Print.
Smith, Robert C. "Poor People's Campaign." Encyclopedia of African American Politics. 2nd ed. New York: Facts On File, 2014. Print.