Interpreting the Failure of the Poor People’s Campaign

2014 Lawrence Lader Prize in Expository Writing

Joule Voelz

If history is written by the victors, then the participants of the Poor People’s Campaign were losers indeed. While the legacy of the civil rights movement is punctuated by the victories of the 1956 Montgomery Bus Boycott and the 1963 March on Washington, few remember the daring but ultimately futile protest organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference that brought thousands of poor Americans to Washington, D.C. in the spring of 1968 to erect a tent city and demonstrate for economic rights. Though perhaps understandably forgotten because of the failure of its goals, the Poor People’s Campaign has much to contribute to our understanding of the shifting sentiments and factions that marked the wane of the civil rights movement and the role of media attention in influencing the outcome of national campaigns.  Specifically, national newspapers which had little option to sensationalize the clean-cut, well-organized sit-ins and marches of the early civil rights movement gradually grew in their power to impact public perception of the movement by reporting on the hiccups and disorganization brought on by the late 1960s cultural shift and a growing number of special interest groups. Like the broad-based social media-fueled campaigns of the twenty-first century—take for example the #BlackLivesMatter campaign—the civil rights movement of the late 1960s became increasingly decentralized and lacked a coherent message from a singular mouthpiece. Thus in determining which mouthpieces to report, the national media had an increasingly powerful role in determining whether or not its sympathetic white readership would decide to stand in solidarity with the movement—if it could indeed still be characterized as a single movement.

Unlike many of his previous efforts, which had touched on economic issues but addressed mainly racial discrimination, the Campaign’s originator Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. focused exclusively on economic issues in order to broaden his base of support beyond his core group of African Americans. Calling for an inclusively vague “program that would provide either jobs or income for all Americans,” King managed to attract not only blacks but poor whites, Native Americans, and Mexican-American members of the 1960s Chicano movement.[1] These special interest groups, along with the serial protestor hippies that appreciated King’s anti-Vietnam War stance, made for a cacophony of voices that rendered the movement’s goals murky rather than simple and created a media spectacle that distracted from the objectives of the Campaign. From the beginning, press-publicized fears of racial violence and obvious parallels between the Poor People’s Campaign and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom built up hype and ultimately drove attention away from the participants’ desire for an economic bill of rights. In the end, the campaign fell apart because of the weight of expectations and the broad, unfocused aims of its participants, both of which—beyond being problems in their own right—fueled media attention that worsened the movement’s reputation and chances for success.

            In early February 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. was in the middle of a campaign, organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to build support for his next project, a large-scale camp-in of the nation’s poor in Washington, D.C. to protest for economic rights.[2] Yet while King’s status as an icon of the civil rights movement helped him reach a wide audience, within the movement black leaders disagreed about the goals and strategy of the campaign. Unlike the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, at which King advocated first and foremost for an end to discrimination, King deliberately chose to target non-race-specific issues, calling for America to “bridge the gulf between the have and have-nots” and end the war in Vietnam and the “forc[ing] of young black men and young white men to fight and kill in brutal solidarity.”[3] However, these two goals, while related, did not go hand and hand. To been seen later and to great effect, they did not receive equal support even among King’s closest associates, much less his constituency and the broader community of special interests and sympathetic whites. The national and local Washington leadership of the NAACP were at odds about King’s campaign, with the Washington NAACP executive director supporting King while the group’s national treasurer called out King for “his own peculiar kind of brinksmanship” on a campaign that could be “a dangerous thing.”[4] Roy Wilkins, executive secretary of the NAACP and a speaker at the 1963 march, expressed concern that King’s plan would be tainted by uncontrollable disorder and violence.[5] These leaders, who had five years ago supported King, now feared that King’s choice of broad-based controversial issues and the emerging violent frustration among black youth—demonstrated most sensationally in the 1965 Watts Riots that injured over one thousand people—would doom King’s latest endeavor. [6]

            However, not every leader in the black community was worried about the movement’s potential for violence; in fact, quite the opposite. Stokely Carmichael, the influential, Washington-based twenty-six year-old former leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and originator of the term “black power,” was interested neither in King’s brand of multi-racial “civil rights ecumenism” nor in strict adherence to nonviolent principles.[7] Though King was able to come to an agreement with Carmichael that promised respect for the non-violent terms of the Poor People’s Campaign, the press had already capitalized on the tension between the nonviolent and separatist factions of the black community.[8] By early February, The Washington Post speculated on the “possibility that [King’s] drive [could] be taken over by violent elements or agents provocateur.[9] With the press on the lookout for a violent conflict, public opinion was on alert for any toe out of line.

Not only did the threat of lawlessness tinge the development of the Poor People’s Campaign, the shadow of King’s previous successes—and the years of stagnation that came afterwards—loomed heavy over the movement, which in its preliminary stages already seemed unlikely to accomplish what King had hoped. “What is a greater peril [than violence] to King’s plans,” wrote The Washington Post in February, “is that nothing will happen. Just nothing.”[10] The title of the article alone—“Is King’s Nonviolence Now Old-Fashioned?”—implied that the campaign would be viewed as a final (likely negative) verdict on King’s nonviolent worldview. As the SCLC struggled to unite the factions of the black community, it seemed that King’s legacy would either make the movement or be ruined in the process.

However, just as it seemed that the Poor People’s Campaign would come to define King’s legacy, a startling turn of events shattered the fragile equilibrium of the Campaign’s leadership. On April 4, 1968, having traveled to Memphis, TN, to participate in a sanitation workers’ strike, Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed on a motel balcony by James Earl Ray.[11] Yet even as the nation entered a state of mourning and racial violence damaged over one hundred cities, King’s death proved to be a lightning rod of attention for the Poor People’s Campaign, and the weight of expectation on the movement’s impending success or failure only intensified. Two days after his death, the Post reported that “The man is dead. The myth begins. Can it sustain the Movement?”.[12] While King’s legacy and the reputation of the civil rights movement seemed more on the line than ever, his successor Rev. Ralph Abernathy found himself with impossible shoes to fill. The press was quick to point out that despite Abernathy’s role as King’s “wise and solid counselor,” he lacked the gravitas and cult of personality to keep radicals like Carmichael on board with the SCLC’s nonviolent position.[13] With its leader in a hearse on its way to the burial at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, the success of the Poor People’s Campaign now seemed to rest on the strength of the goodwill of the diverse coalition King had established before his death.

In the weeks following King’s assassination, it seemed that the public outpouring of grief would be a boon to the Poor People’s Campaign. By the end of April, The New York Times reported that while “it seemed unlikely to many that [before his death] Dr. King could take the immensely broader [than discrimination] issue of nationwide poverty and create…a successful crusade in Washington,” there seemed to be reason for optimism “because of the sympathetic reaction to Dr. King’s death.”[14] Indeed, as Abernathy and the SCLC moved forward with choosing a Washington campsite, preparing construction details, and drafting a list of demands for government officials, an enthusiastic tide of supporters seemed to be joining from all sides.[15] In addition to the 3,000 protestors expected by King, poor residents of Durham, NC, Mexican-Americans from California, and poor whites from Appalachia pledged their support.[16] Planning moved along, and in late April the SCLC issued another characteristically vague list of goals, including “secure and adequate income” and “access to land…[and] capital” for all disadvantaged Americans.[17] As the capstone of the Campaign, the SCLC planned to hold a mass Solidarity Day march on June 19 to make a final united push for their aforementioned goals.[18] However, despite this glimmer of hope, it would soon become apparent that the Campaign’s broad-based support and media attention would work against the interests of the Campaign’s organizers.

Though thousands of supporters determinedly made their way by caravan to Washington, D.C., they would soon find that the camp-in that was the centerpiece of the Campaign would damage the perceived legitimacy of the movement and distract from the economic goals they wished to accomplish. By May 13, Campaign organizers began the task of constructing “Resurrection City,” the “city of plywood and canvas” in West Potomac Park near the Reflecting Pool that would house the 3,000 expected camping-in protestors.[19] As caravans of poor demonstrators arrived from across the country to move into the campsite, the Post marked the fears of District of Columbia citizens of “the possibility of violence and the danger of disease” in the shantytown.[20] Yet despite serious fears, it seemed that the eclectic, hippie style of the protest made it difficult for Washington residents to take the protestors seriously. The Post reported that “throngs of onlookers [swarmed the encampment] to get a look at brightly-colored “rows of huts” painted with slogans including “The Sugar Shack” and soak up the vibe of “soul” music playing from a loudspeaker.[21] In addition, the spring rains created ample opportunities for vivid descriptions of Resurrection City dwellers “slogging through the mud, churned to the consistency of soft ice cream,” thereby confirming fears of health hazards at the campsite.[22] No small wonder, then, that from the beginning Washington politicians felt comfortable accusing the Campaign of “Communist planning” and proposing a bill to “ban unauthorized camping” in the District of Columbia.[23] Compared to the clean-cut nature of Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1963 March on Washington, to the public the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign seemed disorganized and uncouth.

As the Campaign worked towards its June 19 Solidarity Day march, more structural cracks began to show. Though the Poor People’s Campaign’s great diversity of participants seemed promising as a source of broad-based support for the economic rights push, in fact its cornucopia of special interest groups turned out to be a detriment to the cause. For a campaign already plagued by fears of riots, unruly tangential protests served to undermine its legitimacy. [24] On May 30, 1968, a crowd of four hundred demonstrators rallied outside the Supreme Court to protest a decision by the court that upheld a ban on net fishing for salmon in Washington State, a grievance of many Native Americans. Several protestors were arrested for repeatedly lowering a flag on a pole, and others smashed five windows with rocks. [25] Though less violent when compared to the fears of many whites, the disruption was fodder for the press because it fulfilled the prophecy—however weakly—of disruption and violence. The Washington Post wrote vivid descriptions of how the protestors “besieged” the Supreme Court; “hippies… splash[ed] about in one of the pools”; “a barefoot and bearded white man from Oakland, Calif….lowered the flag”; and one man “began screaming obscenities, flailing and kicking.”[26] Yet although incidents such as this one addressed tangential goals that were not central to the movement, Rev. Abernathy and the entire Poor People’s Campaign suffered from association with this eclectic group with an obscure cause and the event’s portrayal in the newspapers.

The Campaign’s collection of miscellaneous special interests also intensified organizational and logistical challenges among the movement’s factions. On June 6, a press conference with black leader Hosea Williams and Mexican-American leader Reies Tijerina turned into a public squabble when Tijerina announced his plan for a march against America’s continuing recognition of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo—a plan that he had not mentioned to Williams, the Campaign’s direct action coordinator.[27] The incident only elevated tensions between the SCLC and the Mexican-American group (which had already declared its autonomy by snubbing Resurrection City in favor of staying at a local school),[28] while at the same time damaging the Campaign’s public image. In a similar vein, a Native American woman who interrupted Abernathy’s press conference on June 11 to present a “letter of complaint from the National Aboriginal Conference” undermined the Campaign’s chances of selling a coherent narrative to the public.[29]

Amid these mixed messages and disappointing self-fulfilling prophecies of failure, the departure of a major leader further dimmed the Campaign’s chances for success. On June 8, Solidarity Day coordinator Bayard Rustin—who had the main role in coordinating the 1963 March on Washington—resigned from the job because he “was unable to obtain clarification of his role from the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy.”[30] Specifically, Abernathy took issue with Rustin’s unauthorized publishing of a list of the Campaign’s goals—an “economic bill of rights”—to the New York Times in early June, in which he had included urban housing, welfare, and labor unions, but failed to mention the Vietnam War and the demands of other participating minority groups.[31] Once again, the unfocused heterogeneity of the Campaign had proved a detriment to coordination. To the public, Rustin was a symbol of “old-line, respectable, highly organized, labor, church and academic liberalism”; in other words, the type of seasoned organizer whose stamp of approval could convince white moderates of the Campaign’s respectability.[32] This blow virtually opened the floodgates of bad press for the Campaign, now openly afflicted with “aimlessness and loss of momentum,” whose Resurrection City was now being described as a site of “hooliganism, internal bickering, squalor turning unsanitary, dispiriting boredom, [and] aimless demonstrations” that mirrored “confusion at the top.”[33]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the June 19 Solidarity Day March was the crowning anticlimax for a movement that had already been deflated by unachievable expectations, unfocused goals, and media overexposure. While Rev. Abernathy, Roy Wilkins, Walter Reuther, and Whitney Young (all contributors to the 1963 March on Washington) spoke eloquently to a group of around 40,000 marchers who walked from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, the demonstration lacked the spirit of change that had captivated 200,000 people five years earlier.[34] Washington Post commentators were united in observing a distinct lack of “optimism,” “inspiration,” and “conviction” among demonstrators—all words that could have been easily applied to the march’s 1963 antecedent.[35] When a team of riot-trained police came on June 25 to evict the residents of Resurrection City for overstaying their permit, there were probably few that believed that remaining encamped was still a good idea.[36] Though the Campaign did achieve some small victories, including the inclusion of some two hundred counties on a list qualifying them for free surplus food distribution, no one could deny that on the whole the Campaign had been an embarrassing failure.[37]

In the end, the myth of Martin Luther King Jr. was not enough to support a movement that was deflated by casting too wide a net and trying to mobilize a core constituency that may have been ultimately discouraged at heart. Yet even despite these internal flaws, what ultimately doomed the Poor People’s Campaign was its over-exposure to press coverage that indulged in the Campaign’s scandalous sideshows rather than its central, yet admittedly vague, theme of economic rights for all. With this truth comes the realization that a national movement of any kind is only as powerful as the image that it presents to the public—and that the press chooses to communicate—because the pictures of muddy tents and sound bites of yelling hooligans will tend to drown out calm, well-reasoned arguments by campaign organizers. As the 1960s progressed, the standard of clean-cut students sitting-in politely at lunch counters was overpowered by broader cultural shift that for better or worse moved American popular culture in the direction of long hair, overalls, and a much more ubiquitous, freeform style of protest. Much as the liberation of the 1960s was inspiring for those who happily embraced it at the time, it did not make for the spirit of protest that Dr. King or his successors could harness to convince the media, and thus the moderate white public, of their movement’s legitimacy. When given the choice between reporting on the peaceful demeanor of thousands or a dirty hippie splashing in a pool, the press will always pick the dirty hippie.

 

Bibliography

 

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[1] Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted  in “King to Train 3,000 as Leaders for Capital March,” The New York Times, January 17, 1968, accessed May 6, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/d....

[2] Jean White, “King Appeals to Negro Middle Class,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, February 9, 1968, accessed April 22, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143538901/B41EC983512A4A65PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[3] Martin Luther King, Jr., "Sermon at the Washington Cathedral," Washington, D.C., March 31, 1968, Speech, accessed May 6, 2014, http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/sermon-washington-cathedral.

 

[4] “King Issue Widens NAACP Rift,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, March 20, 1968, accessed April 22, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143574111/D4D5BC63D9644F21PQ/4?accountid=11311.

 

[5] Bernadette Carey, “Wilkins Fears Riots Could Mar March,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, April 3, 1968, accessed April 22, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143527224/5CF633D515C54673PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[6] “Watts Rebellion (Los Angeles, 1965),” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, accessed May 6, 2014, http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_watts_rebellion_los_angeles_1965.

 

[7] Steven V. Roberts, “Five Major Negro Leaders in the Aftermath of the King Assassination,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, April 14, 1968, accessed April 22, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/118293434/FD961E3D270E45EAPQ/1?accountid=11311.; Robert C. Maynard, “Is King’s Nonviolence Now Old-Fashioned?,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, February 11, 1968, accessed April 22, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143501962/96845296190E447BPQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[8] “Dr. King Reported in Pact on Rally,” The New York Times, February 23, 1965, accessed April 22, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/doc....

[9] Maynard, “Is King’s Nonviolence Now Old-Fashioned?”

 

[10] Ibid.

 

[11] “Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. (4 April 1968),” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, accessed May 6, 2014.

[12] Paul Good, “SCLC Faces Crisis Without Dr. King,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, April 6, 1968, accessed April 22, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143524726/272BB7E3FA764547PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[13] Ibid.

 

[14] Walter Rugaber, “Demonstrations: The Poor Prepare to March,” The New York Times, April 28, 1968, accessed April 22, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/118287095/FB83C99AA9384673PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[15] Willard Clopton Jr., “Mall Is Top Choice for March Campers,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, April 25, 1968, accessed April 22, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143518786/84DC9A21D2724EFAPQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[16] Rugaber, “Demonstrations: The Poor Prepare to March.”

 

[17] “The Goals of the Poor People's Campaign, 1968,” Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement 1954-1985, PBS, accessed May 7, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/eyesontheprize/sources/ps_poor.html.

 

[18] Jean M. White, “Leadership Crisis Perils Poor March,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, June 9, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/d....

[19] Jared Stout, “Marchers’ ‘City’ Rises,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, May 13, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143427249/EDEC44208CAD4D89PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[20] “The Marchers Arrive,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, May 13, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143455194/240E4ACFEFDF4BCBPQ/2?accountid=11311.

 

[21] Willard Clopton Jr., “Poor Marchers’ ‘City’ Creates Its Own Style,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, May 20, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143415137/FB5ADFFB52CC4BEBPQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[22] Willard Clopton Jr., “Marchers Warn U.S. On Force,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, June 1, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143548468/61449EB3905B4B62PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[23] Willard Clopton Jr., “Hill Pushes ‘Camp-In’ Opposition,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, May 3, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/d....

[24]Bernadette Carey, “Wilkins Fears Riots Could Mar March,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, April 3, 1968, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143527224/5CF633D515C54673PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[25] “Marchers Besiege Court: Panes Broken, 3 Arrested in Hill Protest,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, May 30, 1968, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143583910/2AF6A90D58884DB3PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[26] Ibid.

[27] Paul W. Valentine, “Marchers’ Rift Breaks Into the Open,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, June 6, 1968, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143583910/2AF6A90D58884DB3PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[28] Ibid.

 

[29] Paul W. Valentine, “Too Many Factions Sap Poor People’s Unity,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, July 13, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/d....

[30] Willard Clopton, Jr., “Rustin Quits March; Tucker New Choice,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, June 8, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143362239/3B48C075F76D4F13PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[31] “The Goals of the Poor People's Campaign, 1968,” PBS; “Poor Marchers Have Dropped Rustin,” The Times-News, June 8, 1968, accessed May 7, 2014, http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1665&dat=19680608&id=plcaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=kCQEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3656,5578126.

 

[32] Ben A. Franklin, “The Poor: Campaign in Trouble,” The New York Times, June 9, 1968, accessed May 6, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpnewyorktimes/docview/118248238/B6F5679A35F142BCPQ/9?accountid=11311.

 

[33] Ibid.; White, “Leadership Crisis Perils Poor March.”

[34] “Highlights From Speeches at ‘Solidarity Day,’” The Washington Post, Times Herald, June 20, 1968, accessed May 7, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143426629/CD1EFEAC81134551PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[35] Jean M. White, “Five Years Later: Dream Pursued,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, June 20, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143354293/2391281F946348CCPQ/1?accountid=11311.; William Raspberry, “Potomac Watch: March Lacked 1963’s Mood,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, June 20, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143498779/BE9E2E4FB264C00PQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[36] Paul W. Valentine, “343 Poor Marchers Arrested: Abernathy, Aides Offer No Resistance,” The Washington Post, Times Herald, June 25, 1968, accessed April 23, 2014, http://search.proquest.com.ezp-prod1.hul.harvard.edu/hnpwashingtonpost/docview/143475503/203936315C55438BPQ/1?accountid=11311.

 

[37] “Poor People’s Campaign.” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. Accessed May 6, 2014. http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_po...