Black Power 133Poor People’s Campaign:
Martin Luther King’s
unsuccessful last protest
to force Americans to
recognize that capitalism
impoverished millions.America’s priorities were. He observed that the United States spent $500,000
to kill an enemy soldier in Asia but only $35 a year to help a poor American.
His denunciation of the war alienated the Johnson administration, white
supporters of the civil rights movement, and conservative black leaders. To
redistribute America’s wealth and power, King began a quixotic Poor People’s
Campaignto the nation’s capital. He planned to fill the jails, boycott major
industries, and occupy factories until Congress enacted a $30 billion
Marshall Plan to salvage depressed areas. He proposed an array of socialist
measures, including full employment, universal health insurance, a guaran-
teed annual income, and 300,000 low-cost housing units each year. Only
then could the dispossessed sit at the welcome table.
On the way to Washington, King honored a request from his longtime ally,
Methodist minister James Lawson, to assist a strike in Memphis. Black sani-
tation workers had rebelled against filthy working conditions, inadequate
compensation, and the city’s anti-union actions. The last straw came when
only black workers were sent home without pay due to bad weather. Such
disrespect led the workers to adopt the slogan, ‘I Am a Man.’ To pressure city
hall, King led a large demonstration that turned violent when an uninvited
group of young blacks smashed windows and looted businesses. The police,
in full riot gear, rampaged through the black community, shooting Mace as
they went. Sixty blacks were injured and one killed by police gunfire. An
exhausted,depressed King told the strikers, ‘I’ve been to the mountaintop.
... I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want
you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.’
America’s greatest moral leader was murdered the next day.
On 4 April 1968, a career criminal and Hitler admirer named James Earl
Ray shot the 39-year-old King on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel to col-
lect a $50,000 reward. Andrew Young felt King’s silent pulse and exclaimed,
‘Oh, my God, my God, it’s all over.’ In a macabre scene, Jesse Jackson dipped
his palms in the blood and wiped them on his shirt, thus laying a claim to
being the dead prophet’s heir. Riots, arson, and gunfire erupted across the
country, a twisted tribute to a follower of Gandhi. In more than a hundred
cities, there were 46 killed, 3,500 injured, and 27,000 arrested.
In the wake of King’s murder, Congress passed a weak Civil Rights Act,
which prohibited discrimination in renting or buying houses and the intim-
idation, injury, or death of those exercising their civil rights. To appease
conservatives, rioting was made a federal crime. In Memphis, officials recog-
nized the AFSCME union that the sanitation workers supported, touching
off a wave of union-organizing by black southern employees. King’s closest
associate, Ralph Abernathy, carried on their Poor People’s Campaign in
Washington, erecting a shantytown called Resurrection City near the Lincoln
Memorial. Torrential rain, poor leadership, ethnic divisions, and rock-throwing
Civil Rights Act of 1968:
Prohibited discrimination
in the rental or sale of
housing, and provided
criminal penalties for
interfering with one’s civil
rights and for inciting
riots.