This is in loving & living memory of all who sacrificed to build the original Poor People’s Campaign (original PPC), in existence from December 4, 1967, to Summer 1969.
The organizing culminated in a six-week community called Resurrection City in Washington, DC, from Mother’s Day (May 12) to the early morning of June 24, 1968.
The original Poor People’s Embassy was an organizing center for the Campaign in New York City at West 142nd Street & Fifth Avenue. Out of here, Cornelius “Cornbread” Givens, Gilberto Gerena Valentín, Jimmy Collier, and Rev. Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick among many others carried on the work to organize the original PPC.
Since the time of the courageous acts of those who were part of Committee of 100, the Caravans to Resurrection City, and the City itself, they have many stories that have yet to be told.
We re-establish the Embassy to preserve and tell these stories, free of distortion and revisionism.
A garden of flowers that rose on May, Mothers Day March in Washington, DC.
All the sisters and supporters of the 5000 womem of the National Welfare Rights Organization and the New York Mothers Welfare Association and allies.
They traveled from across the country: Indigenous, Blacks, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, and poor Whites from Appalachia, daring to call for a new dawn to rise with a sea of love, carrying our demands for
* the right to food on the table rather than being hungry,
* the right to decent housing and to live as a human being,
* the right to justice rather than brutality,
* the right to education rather than ignorance,
* the right to medical care,
* the right to bilingual education,
* Indian srlf-determination,
* the right to a job and training ,
* the right to a guaranteed income and social security
* an end to racism,
* the right to peace rather than war,
* and the right to freedom for the people,
* which is a crime to deny poor people to live as human beings.
Marching down the street in a burned-down city,
we were invincible in the eyes of America, the richest country in the world.
Our chants of
Mothers’ Power
Women’s Power
Poor People’s Power
Welfare Rights Now
We Want What Is Ours
Bring the Troops Home Now
As the March ended, we rallied ar Cardozo High School Stadium, with Johnnie Tillmon, Coretta Scott King, Diahann Carroll, Julia Robinson Belafonte, Ethel Kennedy, Marian Wright Edelman, Beualh Sanders, Chief Big Snake and his wife Elsie, and many others.
It was the seed that gave light and the engine to the Poor People’s Campaign of Resurrection City on May 13th. History has no blank pages. It still speaks in volumes for today and honors the past and future, so let us embrace our heroes that gave life for the living for another world possible.
As Martin Luther King Jr. said,
“The ultimate tragedy is not the oppression and cruelty by the bad people but the silence over that by the good people.”
On 1 April 1649, The Diggers began to occupy St. George’s Hill, Surrey, England to plant in defiance of the law, the church , and landlords to build what Gerard Winstanley called “a common treasury for all.”
In 1966, The Diggers of San Francisco emerged from the Free City Collective for all human needs to be free. Two years later, their commitment manifested in their God’s Eye Bakery at Resurrection City, the community at West Potomac Park in Washington, DC, formed by the original Poor People’s Campaign.
Poor People’s Embassy salutes the legacy of The Diggers of 1649 that inspired strong allies of PPC 219 years later,
Photo Courtesy of the National Museum of African American History & Culture, Smithsonian Institution
On 5 February 1968, the National Coordinating Committee of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) met with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Chicago to build the coalition for the Poor People’s Campaign. NWRO were instrumental in the Mother’s Day March that commenced Resurrection City three months later.
Poor People’s Embassy/ Embajada de la Gente Pobre commemorates this building of solidarity that is necessary to this day.
Source: “History of the NWRO and NWRU. National Welfare Rights Union
From the voices of the original Poor People’s Campaign on the 55th Anniversary (May 12th, 2023) of the Sunday Mother’s Day March Throughout the Streets of Washington, DC, an Original Salute with love.
To the brave women warriors of the National Welfare Rights Organization and the allies that laid the foundation for the Poor People’s Campaign and the seed that rose unto the Sacred Land into Resurrection City. From the voice and heart from a Rainbow of Nations. Before Occupy Wall Street ever thought of creating something, we were invisible in the eyes of American “freedom” of press, of being poor, hungry, sick, in low-wage jobs, lack of training and unemployment, the right to organize unions, the lack of opportunity of education and bilingual education, the lack of health care, the rigid apartheid system, and the sickness of the caste system US.
It was paradise for the wealthy people in America and damned for the people of Earth. The sickness of war on Vietnam’s people. This was a Spring spirit of struggle 55 years ago, for all of us who dared to stand up against the wall of injustice, brutality, lies, and injustice against the Vietnamese people. And the cry for peace now.
And even now, 55 years later, history has repeated itself with the plague of economic hardships of millions of people in America: homelessness, food insecurity, and the mass of American apartheidism. Drug abuse, high suicide rates, and the Cold War mentality.
In the theater of war of billions of dollars for the war machine but not for social programs for the masses of American people. The Pharaoh;; of now, who has blinded himself with no end to the madness of war and the chants of people around the world are chanting, “Hey Joe Biden, how many mothers and children have you killed today?”
To the Poor People’s Campaign y La Canpaña de La Gente Pobre
To the citizens of Resurrection City
Los cuidadanos de la Ciudad de la Resurrección
I salute the heroes and veterans with the sea of love
To Stanley Levison, Miriam Wright Edelman, Martin Luther King, Jr, Ralph Abernathy – the seeds that gave birth to the Poor People’s Campaign.
To Cornelius “Cornbread” Givens, Frederick Douglass Kirkpatrick, Jimmy Collier, Gilberto Gerena Valentín, Sister Annie Chamberrs, Tillie Walker, Mattie Grinnell, Chief Big Snake, Reies López Tijerina, Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales, Hank Adams, Clyde Warrior, Elsie Snake, George & Rose Crow Flies High, Click Johnson, Donald J. Richmond, Jr. (Tekawerente) – for keeping the struggle.
And deep gratitude to Sister Linda Arako, (Cree), who gave us permission to build the City of Hope.
And to Brother Chairman Rap Brown of SNCC and Stokely Carmichael, who visited us at Resurrection City
And a special thanks to Walt Reynolds of the Diggers, who came and created God’s Eye Bakery “Free Bread Forever”
All the allies that shared their love and heart and soul with the voiceless of the brutal pain of being poor in the Other America, in the richest country in the world, Blacks, Indigenous, Puerto Ricans, Chicanos, and poor white Appalachians were on this sacred space grows the City of Resurrection, marching and chanting in the streets of Washington, DC, to petition the seat of government for our democratic right to free speech
To hear our suffering
As nonviolence was our only weapon
LBJ, Ramsey Clark, the fearmongers, the Dixiecrat Democratic Party and Republican allies and the oligarchy
And J Edgar Hoover and the surveillance state, who were denying our constitutional rights, our right to assemble
We were now the red menace, the black menace, the brown menace, and the poor white menace
Because we were brothers and sisters
In a rainbow of nations
From the oppressed people
Marching with our voice
Guided with love
The power structure feared us
We were demanding peace, ending the war in Vietnam
Freedom for poor people against injustice
Against police brutality and hunger
Foor for poor people and jobs, to end institutional apartheid USA.
From their own political interests, of, determination to destroy the Poor People’s Campaign and Resurrection City, our home with their spies and their destructive campaigns and their infiltration of our City with their ghetto informers
They feared the truth of the Poor People’s Campaign and to this day it’s the same
Our history of the Poor People’s Campaign
Even with the elite lynch mob mentality, brutality and murder
Of the poor people of Resurrection City
Our struggle
We saw the gains of our demands years later: free food stamps, Supplemental Security Income, Bilingual education, some public housing, and some improvements of Indigenous demands
And Improvements of Puerto Rican demands
In front of my own eyes on April 30, 1975, I saw the end of the Vietnam War
Peace now! Peace now!
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” (Martin Luther King Jr)
Over 50 years ago, we were 60 million poor
And now under of the so-called era of the two-bit politicians
Poor people in the US now total 150 million people
With the same thing or even worse than what it was
But we need a real poor people’s campaign
We were the real poor people
We were not slackers
Not an Elmer Gantry from the movie
Preaching only the value of a hustle
In the tradition of the American hustler neoliberaism
That we were, in 1968, the original Poor People’s Campaign
We stood for peace and not war or supporting the war machine
Like some people claim that they are moral
But they support the war machine
Not peace on Earth
We paid the sacrifice price for opposing the War in Vietnam
Just as we used to chant
Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kil today?
As history is repeating itself
As the young people are marching and chanting today
Mattie Grinnell (Mandan) speaks to the press outside the Supreme Court during the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C. Photograph by Bill Wingell Source: National Museum of African American History & Culture, Smithsonian Institution, “Grounds for Solidarity.” https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/grounds-solidarity
Poor People’s Embassy commemorates 10 November – IP Heroes Day – as called by the Indigenous Peoples’ Movement for Self-Determination & Liberation to celebrate by name all who have been active in global Indigenous struggle.
Below are the names of those known for joining the American Indian (Indigenous peoples of Abya Yala) contingent of the original Poor People’s Campaign. They joined hands with Black, Puerto Rican, Appalachian White, and Mexican family to fight for fishing, land, economic, and all human rights. One, Big Snake (Ponca), served as president of the city council of Resurrection City, PPC’s 1968 protest encampment in the belly of the beast, Washington, DC., and he was regarded as the true mayor of the City. Mattie Grinnell (Mandan), at 101 years of age in 1968, was our Grandmother as well as a freedom fighter. Tillie Walker (Mandan-Hidatsa) was a tireless organizer for the Campaign, Committee of 100, the Caravans, and Resurrection City.
Mattie Grinnell (Mandan)
Clyde Warrior (Ponca)
Della Warrior (Ponca)
Tillie Walker (Mandan-Hidatsa)
Big Snake (Ponca)
Elsie (Chickasaw)
Martha Grass (Ponca)
Mel Thom (Walker River Paiute)
Leona Hale (Mandan)
John Belindo (Kiowa/Navajo)
Alfred E. Elgin, Jr. (Pomo)
Hank Adams (Assiniboine-Sioux)
George Crow Flies High (Hidatsa)
Rose Crow Flies High Hidatsa)
Al Bridges (Nisqually)
Maiselle Bridges (Nisqually)
Victor Charlo (Bitterroot Salish)
Wallace Mad Bear Anderson (Tuscarora)
Donald J. Richmond, Jr. (Tekawerente) (Mohawk)
Vine Deloria, Jr. (Standing Rock Sioux)
Frank Allen (Stillaguamish)
Phyllis Howard (Hidatsa)
Myra Snow (Hidatsa)
Louella Young Bear (Mandan)
Naomi Foolish Bear (Hidatsa),
Agnes Yellow Wolf (Hidatsa)
Patricia Baker (Blackfeet-Hidatsa)
Andrew Dreadfulwater (Cherokee)
George Groundhog (Cherokee)
Edith McCloud (Nisqually)
Evelyn Dwimoh (Sisseton-Wahpeton)
Hazel Harold (Pima)
Mel Walker (Mandan-Hidatsa)
D’Arcy McNickle (Flathead)
Joseph Garry (Coeur d’Alene)
Helen Peterson (Northern Cheyenne/Lakota)
Wendell Chino (Mescalero Apache)
Robert K. Thomas (Cherokee)
Robert V. Dumont ( Assiniboine)
Lucille Knight (Lakota)
Mrs. Ellis Blackhorse (Lakota)
Charlie Cambridge (Diné)
Janet McCloud (Nisqually)
Sam English (Ojibwe)
Russell Walden (Chickasaw)
Robert V. Dumont (Assiniboine)
Saludos to American Indian organizations with PPC :
Survival of American Indians Association (SAIA)
National Indian Youth Council
Daughters of Indian Uprisings
Coalition of American Indian Citizens
Saludos to their comrades in internationalist struggle:
