Partners in Justice and Peace: AFSC and the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 Gordon Mantler, Ph.D. University Writing Program The George Washington University (INTRO SLIDE) On December 4, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. formally announced a much- anticipated program of mass civil disobedience that was aimed at forcing the federal government to rededicate itself to the War on Poverty. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King stated, would launch a Poor People’s Campaign to dramatize poverty in the United States by leading “waves of the nation’s poor and disinherited to Washington, D.C. … to secure at least jobs or income for all.” During the following spring, “we will be petitioning our government for specific reforms and we intend to build militant nonviolent actions until that government moves against poverty.”i At the heart of the plan was King’s notion of “militant nonviolence,” illustrated through a series of planned marches, rallies, demonstrations, and sit-ins designed to tie up federal agencies and Congress – all emanating from a central, semi-permanent campout of poor people on the National Mall called Resurrection City.ii If such “massive dislocation” failed to move decision-makers in Washington, then demonstrators would take their protests home to cities and smaller communities across the country, as well as to the two major party political conventions that summer. One way or another, King promised, the poor would be acknowledged in the richest nation in the world. (PPC SLIDE) 1 King’s vision of an “army of the poor” was ambitious, to say the least, because it sought nothing less than the transformation of an already-evolving black freedom struggle into a genuine national movement of, by, and for poor people. This was not just for blacks and whites, but also Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and Native Americans. King and his closest aides in SCLC knew that they could not do this alone; SCLC was not known for its buttoned-down organization, and its blend of charismatic paternalism and devotion to non- violent strategy posed particular challenges in an era in which Black Power offered its own vibrant rhetoric and strategy. Without question, mobilizing thousands of people into a multiracial alliance, while balancing the competing interests, objectives, and rhetoric of several movements, and also adhering to the tenets of nonviolent protest in a time of uncertainty and rising expectations, would have proved daunting to any organization. These challenges were laid bare as SCLC prepared for the campaign that winter and spring of 1968. Of course, King never saw the campaign come to fruition. He was assassinated in April while supporting black sanitation workers on strike in Memphis, an effort that epitomized King’s larger crusade for economic justice. The campaign occurred in his absence and has been routinely dismissed as a failure, not only because of his death, but also because it did not achieve its primary objective. The War on Poverty continued to wither, especially after the election of Richard Nixon. And yet the campaign, including its initial planning, offers a unique window into how identity and coalitional politics interacted, particularly how its participants and organizers attempted to balance the overlapping issues of economic justice, racial justice, and peace. (AFSC SUPPORT SLIDE) 2 Enter the American Friends Service Committee. Immediately after King’s December announcement, SCLC turned to the AFSC because, as SCLC executive director Bill Rutherford described it, the Quaker organization was “the only group in America with whom we can identify totally in terms of their devotion to non-violence and the struggle for freedom.”iii Indeed, the AFSC not only adhered to non-violence as a central philosophy, but its members were often the very few whites in southern towns to champion civil rights early, particularly on issues of open housing, voting rights, and school desegregation.iv (In other research I have conducted, for instance, the local Friends society in St. Petersburg, Florida, played a key role supporting striking sanitation workers through funding, literacy classes, and meeting space.) For AFSC’s part, it viewed participation in the Poor People’s Campaign as a continuation of a “common cause … to build the same kind of society, one that does violence to no man; one that recognizes the brotherhood of all men,” stated executive secretary Colin Bell. “There is no doubt that Dr. King is addressing himself to a sickness in our society.”v Beyond this clear ideological affinity, AFSC proved to be SCLC’s most steadfast partner on the practical demands of organizing. No other organization deserves more credit than the AFSC for broadening the campaign’s vision of poverty and justice that winter and spring of 1968 – a vision then put on full display, however imperfectly, in the nation’s capital. The campaign’s expansive articulation of poverty and justice remains one of its most enduring legacies nearly fifty years later – and the AFSC was central to making that happen. * * * In the early stages of campaign planning, AFSC officials were the only outside representatives asked to participate on every level of the campaign, from the Research 3 Committee to grassroots recruiting. And they often proved quite blunt in their constructive critique of SCLC plans. Although the organization did not come on board officially until February 1968, AFSC officials were intimately involved from the beginning. In December, Marjorie Penney, director of the Fellowship House in Philadelphia and an old friend of King’s, complained that James Orange, the local SCLC coordinator, offered “unbelievably confusing” presentations, and “depending on the audience, he gave widely differing pictures of his mission and SCLC plans for coming here. The total effect has been one of unusual irresponsibility.”vi AFSC officials also raised concerns over SCLC’s initial unwillingness to include non-black participants in decision-making, as well as locating a historic multiracial gathering of community leaders called the Minority Group Conference in Atlanta – rather than a more central location such as Chicago or even Denver. During the next two months, King and his aides responded to such criticism by offering AFSC’s top officials unprecedented access to discussions of the campaign’s organization, publicity, and goal-setting. This established AFSC as a vital partner in the campaign’s preparation.vii (BUILDING COALITIONS SLIDE) AFSC also played an outsized role in recruiting those individuals and organizations who had not worked with SCLC before, especially those outside of black and white faith organizations in the North and South. From the end of January to the beginning of March, the SCLC’s designated executive director of the Poor People’s Campaign (and former AFSC organizer) Bernard Lafayette along with two assistants directed an effort to contact literally thousands of people to compile a list of interested organizations and individuals. Lafayette recalled a “real fast” process that prompted mostly superficial relationships. At first, they 4 relied on lists and contacts from organizations that early on had agreed to participate, including AFSC, the United Church of Christ (of which King aide Andrew Young was a minister), the World Council of Churches, and the anti-war Spring Mobilization Committee. But it was AFSC that proved most helpful in reaching new partners due to its established contacts among American Indians and Mexican Americans. AFSC’s presence in Denver, for instance, helped bring on board Indian activist Tillie Walker and eventually prominent Chicano movement leader Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales. In the Pacific Northwest, the organization’s long support for tribal fishing rights provided yet another conduit to non- black minorities.viii AFSC had a 20-year relationship with American Indian activists in the Pacific Northwest fighting relocation and termination and became the first prominent non- Indian organization to support several tribes’ fights with local authorities over fishing rights in ancestral waters. Starting in 1965, AFSC staff and volunteers began to compile material on the fishing rights struggle to help inform the organization’s stance, resulting in the book Uncommon Controversy, which was initially published by the National Congress of American Indians and then re-published by an academic press. Although the editors ensured readers that the book did “not speak for any of the Indians, Indian groups, public agencies or private agencies or groups” involved in the fishing rights struggle, the report did help legitimate the fight for fishing rights in white liberal peace and civil rights circles. AFSC also was a prominent supporter of the United Farm Workers’ grape boycott, and thus had ties to Cesar Chavez and boycott organizers around the country.ix Even though SCLC put three men in charge, women were the linchpins in campaign recruitment and organizing on the ground, illustrated by the AFSC. The organization’s 5 Barbara Moffett, Pam Coe, and Eleanor Eaton worked tirelessly behind the scenes to publicize the campaign and connect potential organizers and other participants with SCLC, including Tillie Walker. SCLC’s Tom Houck singled out Walker as one of the most enthusiastic early leaders they had contacted: “Tillie would call me everyday to find out what I was doing.”x To Walker, a Mandan-Hidatsa living in Denver, poverty was poverty. “I saw that if you are poor in Mississippi and you are poor in North Dakota, it’s