Page Eight
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Wednesday, June 26, 1968
Page Eight THE MICHIGAN DAILY Wednesday, June 26, ~1968
And,
so,
they
marched
toguthr
4
By ANDREW SACKS
Last Wednesday, more than,
50,000 Americans traveled to
Washington to express their sol-
idarity with the poor people
camped in Resurrection City, and
to urge Congress to rid the coun-
try of poverty. Dubbed the "Poor
People's March", the gathering
was criticized for the affluence
of the participants.
But the label was wrong, for
there was no intention of restrict-
ing the marchers to poor people.
The UAW and Walter Reuther
showed up with a substantial
contingent supplying placards and
hats to ward off the sun. Suburb-
anites from Maryland and Vir-
ginia packed lunches and families
into Country Sedan wagons and
came to support the poor. Pre-
cinct chairmen from the Bronx
and hippies from the village made
the bus trip from New York with
Bill Cosby, Pete Seeger, Maurry
Wills, Peter Paul and Mary, and
Eartha Kitt led off the afternoon's
events with entertainment.
At the conclusion of the per-
formances, the demonstrators
marched somewhat leisurely from
the Washington M o-n u m e n t
grounds past the Reflecting Pool
to the Lincoln Memorial. They
gathered in the hot sun around
the steps of ,the Memorial and the
Reflecting Pool, (many took to
the water to offset the heat) and
listened to 3, hours of speeches
by Sen. Edward Brooke, Walter
Reuther, Whitney Young, Roy
Wilkins, Reis Lopez Tijerina,
Ralph Abernathy and Mrs. Mar-
tin Luther King.
Mrs. King -warned that the
march was "the last chance to
solve these problems (of race and
poverty) nonviolently."
Ralph Abernathy was less
gentle: "The promise of a Great
Society was burned to ashes by
napalm in Vietnam and we
watched the Johnson Administra-
tion perform as the unwitting
midwife at the birth of the sick
society . . . The nonviolent ideal-
ism of the black community be-
came the cynicism for many, and
America suffered the fires of
Newark and Detroit and Chicago.
He said "we will not bow down
to an Administration that refuses
to administer the blessings iof this
Nation to the poor. We will not
bow down to the militarism and
violence of this Nation. I do not
care what they do to me. If I
must join Robert Kennedy' and
Martin King, I still will not bow."
And the poor people did not
bow. Sunday night their permit
to stay in Resurrection City ex-
pired, and rather than leave be-
fore their business was finished,
224 submitted quietly to arrest in
front of the capital building
Monday morning. An additional
119 people were peacefully ar-
rested Monday when police swept
through Resurrection City prior
to its demolition by government
workers Tuesday.
As a climax to these events the
Mule Train, which had been
parked in Virginia across the
bridge from the capital finally
made its way through downtown
Washington to the SCLC head-
quarters yesterday.
See related story, Page 1
Photographed by
Andrew Sacks
i
50,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial
An overflow crowd by Washington Monument
bernmonstrators marched in solidarity with the nation's poor, past the Reflecting Pool
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I
pp
The nuns took a break for lunch Mrs. Martin Luther King sang after her speech
Ralph 4bernathy concluded the speeches
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/ W
Mill