The Promise Land- Poor People's Campaign

The Poor People's Campaign was a Campaign that emphasised the poor people of America and adressed the govenrment to take the issue seriously. This protest was lead by Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC, after King's assassination, Reverend Ralph Abernathy took over and lead over two thousand participants. The protesters beleived that poverty was immoral in a nation as wealthy as the United States of America and that racism, war, and povert were intertwined. The Campaign was meant for all races and every type of person. You did not even have to be poor to participate. The massive demontrasions were non violent and would be held in washington because Washington was the center of government power. The people would demand decent jobs and income to be able to live a decent life so that a person could be in control of their own destiny. The plan was that the people would stay until the government responds.

Question 4: Young beleives that people who opposed the Poor People's Campaign did not see poverty and oppression as the enemy; instead they saw the protestors as the problem. Why do you think this was the case?

I think that people who opposed the Poor People's Campaign did not see poverty and oppression as the enemy because they did not suffer from poverty themselves. They felt threatened by the protest and were fearful of what would happen. The government might have to tax the rich to deal with the poor and the rich would not like that and feel as though this protest did not benefit for themselves. Young said in his writing "

Had we understood the level of concern, we might have acted to either soothe the fear or at least take advantage of it. We wanted to challenge the president and the Congress enough to make them take seriously the problems of poverty and act to help poor people." He did not talk about how the protest ebenifited the rich. He recognized much later the fear of the anti-protestors. He said that they should have soothed the fear.