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 4 * I pp The nuns took a break for lunch Mrs. Martin Luther King sang after her speech Ralph 4bernathy concluded the speeches 0 / W Mill