Police sweep 14th Street NW during Resurrection City disturbances: 1968
Police move south on 14th Street N.W. at U Street in Washington June 24, 1968 as they begin sweeping the predominantly African American area of Washington after disturbances broke out.
Washington, D.C. mayor Walter E. Washington imposed a curfew following the clearing of the Resurrection City camp near the Reflecting Pool.
Confronted with a deadline to vacate the makeshift city where the Poor People’s Campaign had encamped for five weeks, Rev. Ralph Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led about 300 demonstrators to the foot of the U.S. Capitol where they were arrested.
Following the arrests, disturbances began to break out along the 14th Street NW corridor.
At the height of the disturbances in the early evening, bands of young people hurled rocks and bottles at police and broke windows.
City officials fearing the widespread virtual insurrection that occurred earlier in the year following the death of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. mobilized the National Guard. Regular army troops were put on standby.
The Washington Post reported that, “The tear gas on 14th Street was so heavy at the peak of the disturbance that it looked as though the thoroughfare was covered by a fog bank.”
By 10 p.m. the outbreak was quelled as 2,000 city police and 1,200 National Guard troops patrolled the city.
The Poor People’s Campaign for economic justice and against the Vietnam War drew upwards of 100,000 people at its peak in addition to the 3,000 encamped on the national mall.
Originally conceived by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a massive civil disobedience exercise to demand re-prioritizing U.S. policy away from Vietnam and toward domestic economic equality, it devolved into a permitted series of demonstrations and lobby visits following King’s death in April.
The protest ended in defeat as no economic bill of rights passed Congress and many existing programs were limited or dismantled in the coming decades. Some historians mark the end of the national civil rights movement that began with the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957 with this demonstration.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskrqbSDg
Photo by Jackson. The image was a Washington Daily News photograph that is part of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.
Police sweep 14th Street NW during Resurrection City disturbances: 1968
Police move south on 14th Street N.W. at U Street in Washington June 24, 1968 as they begin sweeping the predominantly African American area of Washington after disturbances broke out.
Washington, D.C. mayor Walter E. Washington imposed a curfew following the clearing of the Resurrection City camp near the Reflecting Pool.
Confronted with a deadline to vacate the makeshift city where the Poor People’s Campaign had encamped for five weeks, Rev. Ralph Abernathy of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) led about 300 demonstrators to the foot of the U.S. Capitol where they were arrested.
Following the arrests, disturbances began to break out along the 14th Street NW corridor.
At the height of the disturbances in the early evening, bands of young people hurled rocks and bottles at police and broke windows.
City officials fearing the widespread virtual insurrection that occurred earlier in the year following the death of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. mobilized the National Guard. Regular army troops were put on standby.
The Washington Post reported that, “The tear gas on 14th Street was so heavy at the peak of the disturbance that it looked as though the thoroughfare was covered by a fog bank.”
By 10 p.m. the outbreak was quelled as 2,000 city police and 1,200 National Guard troops patrolled the city.
The Poor People’s Campaign for economic justice and against the Vietnam War drew upwards of 100,000 people at its peak in addition to the 3,000 encamped on the national mall.
Originally conceived by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a massive civil disobedience exercise to demand re-prioritizing U.S. policy away from Vietnam and toward domestic economic equality, it devolved into a permitted series of demonstrations and lobby visits following King’s death in April.
The protest ended in defeat as no economic bill of rights passed Congress and many existing programs were limited or dismantled in the coming decades. Some historians mark the end of the national civil rights movement that began with the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957 with this demonstration.
For more information and related images, see flic.kr/s/aHskrqbSDg
Photo by Jackson. The image was a Washington Daily News photograph that is part of the D.C. Public Library Washington Star Collection © Washington Post.