Activists deeply grieved by MLK's death orchestrated a campaign of hurt and hope

Robert Huston's eyes blurred as he recalled the time in May 1968 when he came to the National Mall in Washington to photograph the Poor People's Campaign.

The movement was conceived by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as a multicultural fight for economic justice for the nation's poor. King had been assassinated the previous month on April 4, but organizers continued and inspired African, Mexican and Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Asians and poor whites from Appalachia and rural areas to come to Washington. An epic *** event. RELATED CONTENT Remembering the Resurrection City and the Poor People’s March of 1968 When Robert Kennedy broke the news of Martin Luther King’s assassination, a painting hung in the African American History Museum A mural at the History Museum recalls the rise of "KDSP" in Resurrection City, "People came from all four corners of America, and it was kind of scary. Strangers. People who didn't know each other or barely knew each other, and they really didn't care about each other. But The only thing they had on Monday was they had nowhere else to go," said Houston, who covered the event for Life magazine. "You're there for a purpose. You have pain just like everybody else. So that kind of makes it bearable. But there's very little trust between people because they're all strangers to each other.

Houston on Resurrection City had been there two or three days before, and a shantytown live *** event had been established on the National Mall for six weeks. But he saw something that made it easier for him to understand the depth of the movement, and the people. A level of commitment to mutual support. First, Houston met a group of African-American teenagers who turned a newspaper upside down and wondered if he could read it to them. Later, as he continued taking photos, he saw something different. Ordinary things.

"A white man holds up a peace sign and says, 'Good morning, man.' "It was exciting and scary," Houston said of Camadelli's unexpected appearance. "Then there was an incident in front of the Justice Department where a black man who had not attended the Resurrection City*** event did*** , with police on both sides of the street watching. “He raised his right hand, clenched his fist, and just said, ‘Black is beautiful,’ and the police rushed in and took him to the ground. I took this photo and four police officers came towards me. I started to back up and heard someone say 'tell our story' and I turned around and looked back at the hundreds of people. I have no idea.

Pastor Jesse Jackson (NMAAHC, the gift of Robert and Greta Huston,) a woman at the tent door, Resurrection City (NMAAHC, the gift of Robert and Greta Huston,) a woman with children Woman, Resurrection City (NMAAHC, gift of Robert and Greta Huston, ? Robert Huston) Resurrection City, 1968 (NMAAHC, gift of Robert and Greta Huston, ?Robert Huston) Resurrection City, 1968 (NMAAHC, gift of Robert and Greta Huston, ?Robert Huston) Houston's Gift, ? Robert Houston) Girl wearing a yellow scarf, Resurrection City (NMAAHC, Robert and Greta Houston's Gift, ? Robert Houston) Plastic sheeting placed at a temporary shelter (NMAAHC, Robert and Greta Houston's Gift , ?Robert Houston) Barbering at Resurrection City (NMAAHC, gift of Robert and Greta Houston, ?Robert Houston) Digging trenches, Resurrection City (NMAAHC, gift of Robert and Greta Houston, ?Robert Houston) Building temporary shelters at Resurrection City Mad Bear Anderson wearing a traditional Native American headdress (NMAAHC, gift of Robert and Greta Huston, (c) Robert Huston)

Photos of Houston - some rarely or never seen before - are on display in a new exhibition called "City of Hope: The Resurrection City and the Poor People's Campaign of 1968." The Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture is organizing the exhibition, Horizons at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture. The new exhibition "American Democracy: A Leap of Faith" explores the history of civic engagement.

Democracy and Peace Action Plan City of Hope screened a never-before-seen film produced by Hearst showing how some 3,500 people built and lived in a tent city . It was so big that the U.S. Postal Service issued a zip code to the settlement. One video shows a caravan pulled by mules carrying people from Marquez, Mississippi, to Memphis, Tennessee, for King's memorial service, and then on to Washington, D.C., and Resurrection City.

We found approximately two and a half hours of footage. City of Hope curator Aaron Bryant explained that he made some choices to shorten the exhibition to about 15 minutes in order to fit the narrative of the exhibition. He added that it was important for the museum's project team to focus on the *** movement as a multicultural movement during the transformational years of the civil rights movement. Bryant said:

"You know any "Things that have to do with labor, or anything that has to do with unemployment benefits or health care, impact all of us and impact our quality of life and our ability to truly live the American dream." "We're not talking about things that are strictly racial, even if they are," King said. All other campaign organizers said. "We're going to show you how the issues that affect Chicano and Mexican immigrant farmers affect you as a Mississippian Of white people. I think that's one of the things that makes this movement so incredible. The Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick (NMAAHC, gift of Robert and Greta Huston,) came from Newark, New Jersey. City (NMAAHC, gift of Robert and Greta Houston, (NMAAHC, gift of Robert and Greta Houston, ) at the Lincoln Memorial (NMAAHC, the gift of Robert and Greta Huston,) Resurrection City (NMAAHC, the gift of Robert and Greta Huston,) Resurrection City (NMAAHC, the gift of Robert and Greta Huston, Robert Huston) Resurrection City (NMAAHC, Gift of Robert and Greta Houston, Robert Houston) Flood Shelter (NMAAHC, Gift of Robert and Greta Houston, Robert Houston) Ralph · Rev. David Abernathy (NMAAHC, Robert and Greta Gift of Greta Houston, (Copyright) Jesse Jackson and James Brown at the Poor People’s Campaign Culture Tent (NMAAHC, Robert and Greta ·Houston’s Gift, (Robert Huston)

Bryant said “City of Hope” intentionally brings diverse objects from the Poor People’s Movement from various Smithsonian museum collections into a multicultural, transnational Regional and cross-cultural exhibitions serve as metaphors for the movement. A large panel in a tent in Resurrection City features a yellow peace sign painted in red, next to a teal symbol reminiscent of an Asian stripe. Dragon. There are a plethora of lapel buttons, placards and murals here featuring Jimmy Collier and Leif Bryant saying Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick is responsible for the culture of Resurrection City. planning. There are also actual recordings of the music collected by Ralph Rinzler and the Smithsonian Center for Folk Life and Heritage

There is even surveillance footage of Resurrection City taken by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. When you first see the aerial video from the camp, it looks like the same photo, but then you start to see something different.

"The Signal Corps went to the Washington Monument. At the top, the video recorder will be turned on periodically during the day to record only the footage of Resurrection City," Bryant said, pointing to the three sets of videos projected on the exhibition wall. "The first camp is Resurrection City in six weeks. You can still watch it. to the grass, and it's medium dry. The middle one is "Resurrection City" where after the infamous rainstorms and floods you can't see the grass anymore and everything is brown and muddy. The last one. The square was the "Resurrection City" after it was demolished and people evacuated.

But before the evacuation, there was a huge *** *** on June 19, 1968, at the Lincoln Memorial, known as "Unity Day", where a sea of ??50,000 people marched from gushes out there.

As impressive as the 1968 *** campaign was, scholars like Bryant, as well as a number of other activists, argued that the fight against poverty and its effects must continue.

"One of the purposes of this exhibition is you know, just because these *** movements happened in the 1960s doesn't mean the struggle is over," Bryant said. "The rights and gains we were able to get in the 1960s were because people really had to commit to something, they had to fight. Today. You have a lot of people who consider themselves activists because they are activists on social media . This is very different from Marion Wright, who, at age 27 and one year out of Yale Law School, decided to move to Mississippi to fight for the rights of the black poor. Edelman was one of the organizers of the Poor People's Campaign along with fellow civil rights activists Ambassador Andrew Young and Ambassador Ralph Abernathy, said her husband, activist lawyer and policymaker Peter Edelman. As the nation celebrates King's birthday and the 50th anniversary of the Poor People's Campaign, there's still a lot of work to be done.

"We don't have the good jobs we had after World War II until the 1970s. The deindustrialization of our country has left us. We are a low wage country with no one in our leadership. Edelman said at a press conference announcing the opening of the "City of Hope" exhibit last week. "There's a long list of things we need to do. We need to end mass incarceration. We need to improve our education. We need to have affordable housing. There's a long list of things, but the absolute core of it is Jobs, like 1963 As in 1968, the level of sacrifice people were willing to endure to change the country was astounding, said Bunch, a historian of what many scholars consider the King's last human rights campaign. Part of the idea behind it was to return the concept of poverty to the national discourse. It also reminded the nation of a multicultural, multiracial group that formed a movement of hurt and hope during a tumultuous year that included the Vietnam War, The Assassination of Kings and Robert F. Kennedy

“We tend to put people who s*** into a certain box. "What this movement is saying is that regardless of race, you all have a responsibility because you are all touched by the pain and power of poverty," Bunch said. "I think the challenge is that the idea 50 years ago was that, on the one hand, you have to attack the economy. On the other hand, you have to create programs, whether it's feeding the hungry or even the bosses. So the concept is that you You have to use both hands, you can't just use the hand of economic opportunity.

The difference today, Bunch said, is that there is no safety net; there is a concept that just creating economic opportunity is enough.

Ultimately, this exhibit posits that ordinary citizens can help make America better," Bunch said. "The best way to honor Dr. King's ultimate sacrifice is to reach across those dividing lines, those of race, gender, ethnicity, to demand a fair and free America."

A group of faith leaders, including priest. Dr. William Barber II and Leif. Liz Theoharis has launched the latest version of her fight called the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Renewal. This battle has been organized for several months, a series of actions