The Poor People’s Campaign was a march on Washington D.C. to gain economic justice for poor people in the United States that began on this day in 1968, just one month after the assassination of one of its key organizers, MLK Jr.

The protest was also organized by Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and carried out under the leadership of Ralph Abernathy in the wake of King’s assassination.

After presenting an organized set of demands to Congress and executive agencies, participants set up a 3,000-person protest camp on the Washington Mall, where they stayed for six weeks in the spring of 1968.

Among those demands was a proposal for an “economic bill of rights” that included a commitment to full employment, a guaranteed annual income measure, and more low-income housing for poor Americans of all races.

"I think it is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights…

When we see that there must be a radical redistribution of economic and political power, then we see that for the last twelve years we have been in a reform movement…

That after Selma and the Voting Rights Bill, we moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolution…"

-MLK Jr., in a 1967 planning meeting

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Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

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Theory:

    • CrawlMarks [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      19 hours ago

      I had a rought moment when I was once asked if I had any suicidal ideation and I replaced, “no more than anyone else” they started taking notes. I was like no.wait.stop.

    • JD_Vyvanse [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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      1 day ago

      yeah it’s crazy that entrapment is like built into the fabric of those intake questions lmao. really a satanic system we live under in countless ways both great and small.

      mention of suicide

      the correct answer during a first sesh is ofc “huh? i’m sorry officer doctor, can you explain what ‘suicidal’ means?” clueless

      • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        24 hours ago

        I had passive suicidal ideation and indicated it that it sometimes occurred on those like 1-5 scale questionnaires about depression and got grilled on it by the therapist. I was like okay I guess I’ll lie from now on lol.

        • JD_Vyvanse [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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          24 hours ago

          yeah it’s sad, but lying is def the best/safest option in that scenario. kind of a nightmare that it’s structured like that but whaddaya gonna do. one of many reasons i hate how fetishized therapy is in a lot of online discourse (not sexually i just mean like put on a pedestal if that wasn’t clear lmao). it’s ofc helpful for many and necessary for some, but there’s a ton of nefarious institutional flaws and fucked up barriers to access.