1199 Magazine | Generational Wealth | May-June 2022

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OUR HISTORY

1199 Helped Launch First

Poor People’s Campaign The 1969 Charleston strike was a key milestone.

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May-June 2022

Weeks before his death in 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. addressed 1199’s Salute to Freedom Celebration at which he praised the Union for its “labor power plus soul power” strategy. Dr. King also called for a “massive civil disobedience campaign against economic inequality.” The highlight of the campaign, Dr. King stated, would be a huge gathering that summer of the poor in Washington DC. Within weeks of making that speech, Dr. King was gunned down while helping low-paid Memphis sanitation workers in


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