Poor People's Campaign

              THEGUILFORDIAN
PAGE THREE
POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN
Throughout the summer they came,
came by the thousands to protest and
demand action from their government.
The mud flats of the Anacostia River
teemed with their shanties during those
hot dusty months for they were poor and
knew the burden of hunger. "Hard times"
hit these ruddy-faced, proud men like a
sledge and pounded them lower and lower
until in anger they demanded action. This
Bonus Expeditionary Force, organized
by the veterans of World War I, shook
Washington to its roots that pre-election
summer of 1932; yet even the utter
desperation their march symbolized failed
to move a conservative Congress.
Half of these once-tough veterans grudgingly accepted the one-way tickets home
to misery, back to the humiliation and
defeat of poverty, while the other half
stayed on in bitterness. As these things
will happen, a riot ensued and President
Hoover called out the Federal Troops,
commanded by General Douglas Mac-
Arthur and Dwight David Eisenhower, to
restore "law and order" and put down
the "Reds".
This year, some thirty-six years later,
despite Franklin Roosevelt's pledge of
"a new deal for the American People,"
the degredation of poverty is still a trenchant reality for millions of Americans
of all races.
Today's downtrodden are also "veterans," veterans of the humiliation and
defeat of poverty - - a preposterous sore
on the back of "the home of the free".
Yet these people ask not for welfare, the
patronizing garishness of charity or the
mockery of middle-class pity. Instead,
they ask the apparently impossible; they
seek "Decent jobs and income," and "the
right to a decent life."
The moral potency - - indeed, prepotency - - of their request proves overwhelming for even the most callous (Senator Murphy, an arch-Conservative Califor-
nian, after viewing the misery of Mississippi, was also moved to demand action to
remove the strain of poverty from those
person's backs).
They want no "bonus checks, only the
right to start life on an equal footing, a
right guaranteed them by our Federal
Constitution. This '"underclass" of Americans is speaking directly to the "great
unwashed" middle class in their language.
The time to act is now, not with brute
force, nor with parsimony, but with compassion, and more importantly, action!
Now, as in 1932, this country seeks a
"New Deal", a new way of life and a new
awakening. This year, 1968, could very
well signal the new eve of a new era of
WASHINGTON (CPS)- Students are expected to play a significant role in the
Poor People's Campaign.
Seven schools - - the Berkeley, Los
Angeles, and Santa Cruz campuses of the
University of California, Stanford, Michigan State, and Gammon Theological Seminary in Georgia - - will give students
credit for participation in the Campaign.
Stoney Cooks, student co-ordinator for
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference says three or four others may also
send students. There will be about 200
students involved in the project.
Cooks, who dropped out of Indiana's
Anderson College in 1965 to work for the
SCLC, began organizing the program this
winter. He contacted students on several
of the campuses and they went to work
persuading faculty members and administrators to have their schools participate in
in the program. Most of the students will
be attending intensive seminars on problems of poverty before they come to
Washington.
These students will be working in
offices, working with various support
committees set up in Washington, and
planning and participating in many of the
demonstrations. They will live in the
shanty town which the poor people will
be building in a prominent place in
Washington.
For Information:
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
POOR PEOPLE'S CAMPAIGN
1401 U Street, N.W. __
Washington, D. C. 20009