Resurrection City, 1968

Here's a view of the mall in Washington, DC, with the Washington

Monument in the background, in June of 1968. The plywood shacks

were built by participants in the Poor People's Campaign organized

by Rev. Martin Luther King and his Southern Christian Leadership

Conference in the months before the civil rights leader's

assassination. Thousands of people from across the country joined

the multiracial effort to petition government leaders to act to

alleviate the plight of the nation's impoverished. More images of

this campaign will follow. Your comments and critiques are always

welcome.

Thanks...Bill

I find this an important historical image because I don't think it or this scene was widely acknowledged. I never knew something like this took place at that time. I think you need an exhibit to show these off, sir. I hope you persue that.

Alexis

www.alexisneel.com

Your picture mirrors two of which my parents took while I was a toddler at the event. My parents tell me that I hid behind their legs while pointing and asking repeatedly, "...is that a hippie?"

One of the pictures I have shows the plywood shack painted We Shall Overcome!

CHICAgO SHIRlEY MARy SOUL SISTER No. 1 BLACK SOUL SISTER Power. The other reads "Every citizen shares responsibility for what government is (or is not doing) $70 billion to kill vietnamese $1.5 billion to give crumbs to starving americans

Nation You (unreadable)may be 148

They are 3 1/2 inch square faded color pictures. I look at them at least 3 or 4 times a year.

I was almost 20 at the time and walked through Resurrection City in June 1968.

The media was very "pro" popular movements and demonstrations back then and always portrayed them in a positive way, not like the "Tea Party" I will be attending in an hour or so where the camera will be trained on the one guy with a swastika.

I participated in the End Hunger in America March back in 1968 and stood along the reflecting pool, just on the other side of these makeshift huts and tents.  I still have my protest poster, in fact.  I'm commenting because I noticed that one contributor to this critique has a rather selective memory.

Resurrection City was squalid... it reeked, actually.  But the sentiments were heartfelt and sincere.  The press did NOT favor the protest - the papers were extremely critical, printing pictures much like this one.  However, the press coverage - and there was a lot of it, if you were watching and listening - did help keep the police in check.  The memory of their brutal response to earlier anti-war protests was still fresh and the tension was thick... there were threats early on from the DC Police that they would attack the protestors, arrest them wholesale and demolish the encampment.

In the end, DC and the Feds did nothing -- it as if they decided that, if they couldn't demolish it, they certainly weren't going to work with the protestors in any way.  The whole protest lasted way too long - it lost its focus and what little support it ever had, and was finally abandoned, leaving behind acres of muck and ill will.  A short time later, King was assassinated and the city erupted in flames.

Wingell's sullen photo captures the time extremely well -- it matches my memories of the encampment by the Reflecting Pool.