From The Archives Of The 2018 Poor People's Campaign

The Rise And Fall Of The Poor People’s Campaign, Circa 2018 Version  

My father Bradley Fox, Senior told me last year when I heard about the stir around a renewed poor people’s campaign that trying to use an idea the second time doesn’t necessarily get you any traction, doesn’t bode any better for success that the first time not on the great social problems. All I knew before campaign started in the early spring that was what I had read in a class in college (Rochester-go Yellowjackets) about the various social movements of the 1960s and had been struck by the promise that the original poor people’s campaign had given before Doctor Martin Luther King was struck down by a vile assassin. That Doctor King had been ready to move heaven and hell to get the mass of poor people out from under with his economy recovery program and his “by the boot straps” philosophy as well as having the “clients,” the poor themselves take charge of any programs since they after all have to live with the results.       

  

What I did not know, although maybe in the recesses of my mind I had been told this, that one Bradley Fox, Senior had been “down in the mud” in 1968 through the whole woe begotten experiences that plagued the efforts from leadership problems to rain and mud to drugs and anti-social behavior. That all despite the good intentions of most of the participants and the desperate need to get poor people the hell out of poverty the thing fizzles into the general ebb-tide of the 1960s when the great promise of the pre-Vietnam War drain suck world looked like it would lift all boats.

I went into the 2018, the 50^th anniversary iteration of the still necessary task, getting poor people out of poverty and into some personal and political power from a more generically socially conscious perspective. Certainly I was brought up in comfortable circumstance and never had worry about having a roof over my head, a way to travel, food to eat, and not having to look over my shoulder at every turn to see if somebody farther down the food chain wanted what I had and was ready to argue about the matter.

Here is what I did not know, did not know why my father was so distraught back in 1968 and had many forebodings about the 2018 version. My father had started life in “the projects” over in North Adamsville south of Boston. Had known wants I had no clue about since he rarely ever talked about it before I confronted him about his gloomy projections for the current project. When my grandfather was out of work, and that was a lot of the time since he was poorly educated and fairly ignorant the family had to tighten its collective belts quite a bit. My poor grandmother had to seriously short- change the weekly white envelopes which were in any case always chronically short to give the bill collectors enough to keep the wolves from the door. Not always successfully as periods of carless-ness, no electricity and no heat testified to. This opened a whole new world to me about my dad.             

Still he cried a tear, as did I when the great promise of the early spring of 2018 looked like even in Trump times we would get a jump up on the damn poverty and homelessness turned to ashes over some of the same issues that caused the 1968 efforts to fall down, leadership squabbles, some racial antagonisms, and a fair amount of indifference by those who in 1968 would have considered themselves on board this aspect of the freedom train.