A Love Poem for the Mothers’ Day March Heroes of 1968 (Rev. Annie Chambers)

A Love Poem for the Mothers’ Day March Heroes of 1968

Rev. Annie Chambers

© Carlos Raúl Dufflar 5/12/24

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.”