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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    • CrawlMarks [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      9·
      3 days ago

      I dunno. I’ll hear arguments about other drugs. Just like alcohol specifically seems to make the most wretched situations for people.

      • ShimmeringKoi [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        15·
        3 days ago

        The exact moment I fully internalized that I was one with the biosphere that capital is destroying, and felt a wretched spiritual sickness, I was on mushrooms and acid by a creek in the desert. A couple people there said I noticeably changed as a person in the span of a night, which is good because I was kind of a dick before. So that’s my anecdotal evidence

        Oh, and I also sort of accidentally stumbled into baby Maoist thought on contradiction, then did nothing with it until later realizing

        I think that while psychedelics aren’t themselves illuminators of grand objective cosmic truth, they do excel at tilting the prism, showing you the familiar from a new perspective and enhancing your ability to corrolate and draw conclusions. Sometimes the experience is beautifully childlike and inquisitive, sometimes it’s nauseating and terrifying, but it’s never nothing, never meaningless. It drenches you in allegory, and deciphering it to better understand your mind is a rabbithole that can lead you to new vistas of self-knowledge if you approach it with care and diligence, or to a Qanon group chat if you don’t.

      • fox [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
        4·
        3 days ago

        Some drugs are less harmful but anything that alters brain chemistry has potential for abuse, either due to genetic tendency towards addiction or material conditions making addiction easier.

    • SteamedHamberder [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Taverns and saloons were also places of organizing 100 years ago, particularly for immigrant communities. I’m not gonna devils advocate and say that drugs or alcohol are revolutionary, but I think there is still human commaradery that goes along with having a round of drinks at the end of the week and complaining about your boss.