'@ The actions of the Negro people of the Unit-

ed States, led by the late,

Luther King in a massive

heroic Rev. Martin
civil rights demonstra-

tion, broke through the iron wall of official reac-
tion to condemn the U.S. war in Vietnam.
® Today in the Poor People’s March on Wash-

ington the fighting spirit of

the Negro people of

America is now questioning the foundations of the

€conomic system of the United
® To the rulers of America

Gre saying: we refuse to

to fight unjust wars, we refuse to starve,

States.

the Negro people
be lynched, we refuse
to go ill-

clothed, without jobs, poorly educated. We refuse
to be the most exploited of the exploited any

longer.

® We demand democracy, peace,

Gnd education.

ee

food, jobs

"The U.S. is living a lie.
ie any longer.

this country.
“The current situation is

the question to remain only

—_—_.

ECONOMIC SYSTEM QUESTIONED

In a speech that is a reply to Johnson Rev. James
Bevel, a man who is the leader of the Mississippi contin-
gent of the Poor Peoples’ March said:

thing is alright. We are not going to participate in that

“There is a conspiracy against the black people in

Ku Klux Klan but is being done by the American people,
white, Christian, respectable people who have built struc-

tures that keep people down.
“There are a lot of people,” he said, “who would like

Would like to keep us away from the economic questions.
_ “If you sit back and let the system function the way
it is functioning you are endangering your own existence.

“As long as a system exists where people prey on one
another, black people are in danger”.

It is a lie that says: every-

brought about not by the

one of race because they

As Out of $700 million in fe-

Reel funds available last year to

Bede food to those on the

ae of starvation only $150
illion was actually spent for
'S purpose.

* In dozens of congressional
Stricts and whole states where
pulions of dollars went to a
2 all handful of farmers as sub-
4 Subsidies for . not growing
Benin foodstuffs only a pit-
ae was paid out to help those
ffering from hunger.

® One of the worst examples
a provided by Lyndon John-

N's own state of Texas where
ain million was paid in

SOunts of $5,000 or more to
a —

di

_ The great society

farmers representing two-tenths
of one percent of the state po-
pulation while only $7.5 million
was available to help make food
available to the 29 percent of
the- population, some 2,850,000,
living below the poverty line.

In recent years billions of dol-
lars have been given to general-
ly well-to-do farmers and large
farm corporations while the
chairman of a House committee
dealing with agricultural ap-
propriations opposed a pilot
program to provide school
breakfasts for hungry children.

His reason for his opposition:
he questioned whether the fede-
ral government “should start do-
ing everything for citizens”.

city in W ashington.

A nail for the poor. Ralph ‘Abernathy, leader of the Poor People’s campaign, h

elps construct the aces

The power of Peoples Power

By JEFF HURLEY

Hunger, lack of jobs, terrible
housing and inadequate educa-
tion—these are the reasons why
Negroes, and some white poor,
are converging on Washington
from across the nation for the
most. massive protest. demon-
stration in U.S. history.

They are marching on Wash-
ington in a display of the only
power left to them that will
bring action on their demands:
peoples’ power.

“Fortress America” is being
shaken from inside like it has
never been shaken before.

Rev. Ralph David Abernathy,
leader of the Poor Peoples’
March on Washington says:

e The protest march may be
the United States’ last chance to
solve its problems “in a decent
way. Time is not running out.
It has already run out.”

No less than one million peo-
ple are expected to converge on
Washington, the target of the
March. This figure is five times
as high as the number that par-
ticipated in the Civil Rights
March on Washington.

The huge demonstration is
scheduled to take place on May
30, Memorial Day in the U.S.

A Citizens’ Board of Inquiry
into Hunger and Malnutrition in
the so-called Great Society of
the United States has reported
that:

e Out of 29 million people
living in what the U.S. govern-
ment officially regards as a con-
dition of poverty, probably more
than 10. million scattered
throughout every corner of the
nation were suffering “chronic
hunger and malnutrition.”

The report defined America
as “a shocking place to live.”

The authors of the report de-
clared that ‘“‘no other Western
country permits such a large
proportion of people to endure
the lives we press on the poor.

“To make fourth-fifths of the
nation more affluent than any
people in history we have de-
graded one-fifth mercilessly.”

“Hunger and malnutrition
take their toll in this country in
the form of infant deaths, or-
ganic brain damage, retarded
growth and learning rates, in-
creased vulnerability to disease,
withdrawal, apathy, ° alienation,
frustration and violence.

“For hunger and malnutrition
in a country of abundance must
be seen as a consequence of a
political and economic system
that spends billions to remove
food from the market, to limit
production, to retire land from
production, to guarantee and
sustain profits for the producer.
Perhaps more surprising and
shocking is the extent to which
it now rests within our power
substantially to alleviate hunger
and malnutrition.”

We come as representa-
tives of Black, Indian, Mexi-
can-American, Puerto Rican
and White-Americans who
are the too-long-forgotten
hungry and jobless outcasts
in this land of plenty.

We come because poor
fathers and mothers want a
house to live in that will
protect their children
against the bitter winter
cold, the searing heat of
summer and the rain that
now too often comes in
through the cracks in our
roofs and walls.

We have come here to say
that we don’t think it’s too
much to ask for a decent
place to live in at reason-
able prices in a country with
a Gross National Product of
800 billion dollars.

We don’t think it’s asking
for pie in the sky to want
to live in neighborhoods
where our families can live
and grow up with dignity,
surrounded by the kind of
facilities and services that
other Americans take for
granted. And we want to
play a productive part in
building those houses and
facilities.

—Reyv. Ralph Abernathy,

The South is the home
frounds of the most blatant
Champions of U.S. imperialism.
It breeds the Dixiecrats who
Control the military committees
in Congress. South Carolina’s
Representative Mendel Rivers
heads the House Armed Servi-
Ces Committee. Georgia’s Sena-
tor Richard Russell is his coun-
terpart in the Senate. There are
no blood-thirstier hawks than
Senators Strom Thurmond of
South Carolina and James East-
land of Mississippi.

The Dixiecrats. are . often .

characterized as having two
heads, one anti-labor, the other
anti-Negro. Actually a proper
portrayal would be.a_ three-
headed anti-labor, pro-war,
racist monster.

The South is an open shop
citadel. Only 14 percent of the
workers are organized, compar-
ed to the national average of
which is bad

alleged disappearance, of the,

The economics of poverty

Southern wage differential.
Wages are more than 20 per-
cent below the national ave-
rage, a clear reflection of the
low level of union organization
and discrimination against
Negro workers.

Here are additional wage
figures that spell out what hap-
pens when industry runs South
to avoid trade unions: 96 per-
cent of all cotton textile work-
ers are now in the South, with
an average wage of $1.74 an

and starvation

of $1.54; over 86 percent of all
work clothing is made in the
South; average wage, $1.40 an
hour.

In heavy industry, over 35
percent of the nation’s fabrica-
ted structural steel workers are
in the South; 17 percent of the
foundry workers; 12 percent of
those engaged in the manufac-
ture of machinery. None of
these make even 80 percent of
the national average in their
industries. i

What about workers in the

Serene

ee

mainder of the country.”.

ly black workers? Restaurants,
80 cents an hour; hotels and
motels, 85 cents an hour; nurs-
ing homes, 90 cents an hour;
laundries, $1.14 an hour. Al-
most one-third of all hotel
workers are in the South, and
nearly 40 percent of the na-
tion’s laundry workers.

In a study on Southern wage
differentials, H. M. Douty con-
cludes that “over the past 60
years, there apparently has
been little change in the wages
between the South and the re-

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