RESURRECTION CITY

• Published in: The Crisis (Baltimore, Md. : 2003) Vol. 125; no. 3; pp. 29 - 34
• Main Author: Bryant, Aaron
• Format: Magazine Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore The Crisis Publishing Company 01-07-2018
• Subjects: Demonstrations & protests; King, Coretta Scott (1927-2006); Poverty; Social change; Washington DC; United States > US
• ISSN: 1559-1573; 2169-2734

By 1968, 35 million people lived below the poverty line of $3,130 per year for a family of four, and $1,540 per year for individuals. As an emerging middle class migrated to the suburbs, the poverty of coal mines, migrant farms and inner cities became invisible. From the elderly and underemployed to children and persons with disabilities, poverty affected people of every race, age and region of the country. In response, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., called for a multiracial, anti-poverty movement to address the wealth and opportunity gaps that stood between the American dream and the nation's realities. Taking a message of economic justice nationwide, King mobilized a Poor People's Campaign, in which demonstrators from across the country would meet in Washington DC, to demand an "Economic Bill of Rights". The Poor People's Campaign was a catalyst to federal programs and policies that laid the groundwork for later social change.