On this day in Labor History the year was 1968.
It was mother’s day. Coretta Scott King, the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led a group of thousands of women in a demonstration in Washington D.C.
Her husband had been assassinated just a little over a month before.
Coretta Scott King and the women were the first wave of a demonstration known as the “Poor People’s Campaign.”
One of the women in attendance was Ethel Kennedy, wife of Robert Kennedy.
Dr. King had announced the “Poor People’s Campaign” the previous October.
He called for an “Economic Bill of Rights” and a demonstration in Washington D.C.
There were five planks to the plan.
They included a “meaningful job at a living wage” and “A secure and adequate income.”
The other three were access to land, capital, and a role for ordinary people in their government.
An assassin’s bullet cut short this new effort by Dr. King. And so, his wife and longtime fellow Civil Rights organizer Ralph Abernathy took up the cause.
The campaign was led by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
After the Mother’s Day demonstration, the SCLC established a tent city on the Mall in Washington, D.C.
They dubbed the demonstration “Resurrection City.”
For weeks the demonstrators lived in tents and shacks to bring attention to the plight of the nation’s poor.
Then on June 6, presidential candidate Bobby Kennedy was assassinated.
His funeral procession passed by the Resurrection City, because of his respect for the campaign.
Finally, on June 24, the Department of the Interior closed down the demonstration citing an expired permit.
The demonstration did however win some small victories, including promises of more federal jobs for the poor.
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Labor History in 2:00 brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and The Rick Smith Show