King

King, I think in 1966 or ’67 makes his great anti-Vietnam speech in New York… and he calls the United States the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today. And he is also preparing his poor people’s march in 1968. He’s broadening his scope, not just a black-white issue, but a wide economic issue about the distribution of wealth in the United States. And in 1967 he makes his quote about “we have to have a revolution in political values in this country.”
Jim Di Eugenio


"The solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income."
Martin Luther King, Chaos or Community, 1967


Reverend Ralph Abernathy, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's (SCLC) successor to the slain Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., began the Poor People's Campaign of 1968 with the proclamation that "the poor are no longer divided. We are not going to let the white man put us down anymore. It's not white power, and I'll give you some news, it's not black power, either. It's poor power and we're going to use it.” The Poor People's Campaign (PPC) was a convergence of racial and economic concerns that brought the poor, including those who were black, white, Indian, and Hispanic to live in shantytowns and demonstrate daily in Washington, D.C. from May 14 until June 24, 1968. The PPC was conceived by Dr. Martin Luther King, but, unfortunately, was not led by him. Dr. King was murdered on April 4, 1968 while campaigning with striking garbage workers in Memphis, Tennessee. His death helped to ensure that the Poor People's Campaign would be a failure.
Robert T. Chase