"Living and Working in Resurrection City:
Dr. King's Multi-Racial Activist Encampment Against Poverty."
A Talk with Michael Cerulli Billingsley
Wednesday, February 29 at 7 p.m.
At The Jaquith Public Library
When the Poor Peoples' Campaign was first announced in March of 1968 Dr. King was still alive. After his assassination 3 weeks later, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) appointed Ralph David Abernathy to take his place. Coretta Scott King moved to the foreground and joined other SCLC leaders to take the Poor Peoples' Campaign forward.
In early May Michael Billingsley (then a low-income maintenance man and photographer in Delaware) joined the campaign and went to work for Rev. James Bevel of Birmingham as part of a small team building plywood shacks for 3000 of the protesters. ZIP Code 20013 by the Reflecting Pool was a tough micro-city, where Billingsley lived with the Oakland Black Panthers and sometimes fought with Rev. Abernathy for equity and fair treatment of the poor.
Jaquith Public Library
802-426-3581
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