As a young, barely-politicized person, I ran across a notice
inviting people to come to Washington, D.C., with a group studying
non-violence. Leaving from Ann Arbor, the plan was to stay in churches and
college dorms for a week, participating in marches and meetings in Resurrection
City, built along the reflecting pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I
signed up with the group of eight or so people.
The campaign had been Martin Luther King’s idea, but he was
killed in April, 1968, and the campaign started in May. It was left to Ralph
Abernathy to head up the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. I recall how
tired Abernathy appeared to me, sitting across from him in a poorly attended
meeting. By contrast, Jesse Jackson was everywhere! He was only 27 and had been
leading an SCLC operation in Chicago. His upstart, attention-getting ploys
caused a rift with Abernathy later. But Jackson’s attempt to downplay race in
the struggle against poverty and the grass-roots organizations he created were
certainly affected by his experiences at the Poor People’s Campaign.
In addition to poor black people, Dr. King had reached out
to Native Americans, Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and poor white
Appalachians, all of whom came to Resurrection city. Multi-cultural experiences
and classes for all were held in the “Soul Center” tent in the middle of the
city. I’ve since learned that the Highlander Folk Center and the Smithsonian
Institution assisted.
Every night, under the Lincoln Memorial, with acres of
people around the reflecting pool singing along and dancing, groups played pop
music. It seemed to mostly be a Motown Sound. Marshall Tate, who became a
friend that week, drew me instead to the tent nearby where the old blues and
bluegrass people were playing and Pete Seeger moderated the evenings. Seeger
had been blacklisted from being on television in the early years of the 1960’s
when I was watching, so I’d never seen him though we were all singing his
songs. I don’t remember exactly who we saw, but probably John Lee Hooker, Flatt
and Scruggs, lots of banjo pickers.
An odd thing about the present, is that you don’t know the
significance of what you are doing until later. It is only now, forty-five
years later, that some of the pieces click into place. For instance, marching
in a long, winding column throughout the capitol alongside a nondescript
middle-aged white man, I heard the whispers, “That’s Dave Dellinger.” I knew he
was a peace activist, but it is only now that I am aware of his power and
significance. He was 53 at the time and had been a conscientious objector
during the Second World War. All through the 1950’s and 60’s he participated in
freedom marches in the South and hunger strikes in jail, eventually coming to
apply the principles of nonviolence to the anti-Vietnam war movement. He was
indicted later in 1968, along with the rest of the Chicago Eight.
 |
| June 18, 1968, Washington, D.C. |
The Poor People’s Campaign is generally seen as a failure
because it did not produce anti-poverty legislation, it didn’t get much press
coverage and the campaign died out in the middle of June. Residents were
divided about whether they wanted to share in America’s “culture of abundance”
or revolt against it. One of the mule trains, however, did travel to both the
Republican and Democratic conventions that year. And the campaign’s legacy
lives on in the indelible experiences of those who were there.
None of my characters attends the Poor People’s Campaign.
Marty is in California in 1968, Line is pregnant and working, and Paul is in
Minnesota. But my own involvement informs the writing and everything that
happens in With One Hand Waving Free.
