Newspaper Page Text
n
1 0 GEORGIA BULLETIN, THURSDAY, MAY 9, 1968
March To Protest New Welfare Amendments
By JOHN R. SULLIVAN
WASHINGTON, (NC) - The
nation’s capital will get its first
taste of massive, organized
protest on Mother’s Day, May 12,
when thousands of welfare
recipients demonstrate against
welfare amendments which go
into effect in July.
The reaction of official
Washington could well determine
the kind of summer the city will
experience when the Poor
People’s Campaign, organized by
the late Dr. Martin Luther King’s
Southern Christian Leadership
Conference, comes to stay.
The welfare recipients will
come to protest amendments
passed late in 1967 which
would—if allowed to take effect
on July 1 as planned-curtail
federal contributions to Aid to
Families of Dependent Children,
the major source of income for
families whose parents cannot
work.
The occasion is the Mother’s
Day March, a nationwide protest
which will focus on Washington
and become part of the Poor
People’s Campaign, which opened
If your child is worth more than any
thing to you, think of this boy in the
photo. He has yaws, a widespread tropi
cal disease which causes severe disfig
urement, crippled bones, blindness and
eventual death. But the most startling
fact about yaws is how little it takes to
cure it—$10. A child like this has only
you to turn to. In Mission lands millions
like him are without care. Dear Mon
signor: I care enough to help by send
ing $ .
NAME:,
ADDRESS:.
THE MISSIONS
NEED YOUR HELP!
SALVATION AND SERVICE ARE THE WORK OF
THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE FAITH
SEND YOUR GIFT TO
The Right Reverend Edward T. O'Meara The Reverend Noel C. Burtenshaw
National Director OR A rchdiocesan Director
March 29. The same day protests
will be held in 40 to 50 other
U.S. cities.
The Mother’s Day
demonstration is sponsored by
the National Welfare Rights
Organization. It will start with a
march through Washington’s
ghetto to Cardozo High School,
where Mrs. Coretta King, the
widow of Martin Luther King,
Jr., and welfare rights leader
George Wylie will speak.
The following week main
elements of the Poor People’s
Campaign are scheduled to enter
the city and to set up their “New
City of Hope” somewhere in the
city.
The campaign head, Rev.
Ralph Abernathy, expects to
bring in about 3,000 poor-white,
Negro, Indian, Mexican-American
and Puerto Rican-for non-violent
demonstrations.
But the Mother’s Day rally
promises to top even that figure.
The National Welfare Rights
Organization has upwards of
6,000 dues-paying members
around the country-about half of
them in the New York area alone.
And there are-to say the
least-many thousands more
welfare recipients in ' sympathy
with the goals of the
organization. Rally organizers
here don’t pretend that all will
appear for Mother’s Day; in fact,
they don’t pretend to know how
many people will show up. But
reports from New York and other
cities indicate that
5,000—including Washington
ghetto residents-would not be
too high a guess.
The march-although it will be
held on a Sunday, a day on which
Washington is normally bereft of
all human life but the
tourists-will provide the first test
of Washington’s official attitude
toward peaceful protestors.
Unlike the Poor People’s
Campaign itself, no civil
disobedience is planned by the
welfare organizers, no
“disruption,” no impromptu
visits to Congressmen.
The occasions for a
confrontation with police or
other “officials' are “rrfinimal and
the march and rally should go
smoothly.
If it does, it could be a boon to
the Poor People’s Campaign
organizers. They may want to
disrupt Washington if it is
necessary to achieve their ends,
but they do not want to drive out
all the people-it is people, after
all, whom they want to reach.
It could help stem a rising tide
of fear in white Washington and
its suburbs. In Silver Spring, just
across the District line in
Maryland, neighbors of Xaverian
College are very upset. The
college has donated its grounds to
the Campaign as an assembly
point for prefabricated housing
for the demonstrators. Once a
site for the “New City of Hope”
is agreed upon, the dwellings will
be trucked from Silver Spring.
Nevertheless, residents of
apartments and homes in the area
have become concerned that
“those people” will destroy their
property. Similar feelings are
detectable among residents of
other suburbs.
But not among all. Thanks to
the efforts of priests, ministers
and rabbis in the Washington
area, supplies-food, clothing and
bedding- are already being
collected in the suburbs and
arrangements for education,
medical and legal aid have been
made for the poor who will arrive
in mid-May.
In the two weeks between the
start of the campaign and the
arrival of the first group of
demonstrators on Mother’s Day,
they have had a chance to
become better organized to meet
the inevitable emergencies which
even the best of planning cannot
sometimes anticipate.
And the rest of
Washington—the mass of
government workers, secretaries,
, waiters and store owners-have
had a chance to anticipate.
Leaders Favor Plan On Income
366 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10001
P. O. Box 12047. Northside Station
A tlanta. Georgia 30305
WASHINGTON, D.C. (RNS) -
A meeting here of Roman Catho
lic lay leaders from all parts of
the U.S. has endorsed a proposal
for laws guaranteeing a minimum
annual income to every American
family.
A resolution approved by the
biennial Presidents’ Conference
of the National Council of
Catholic Men, called for other
changes in welfare legislation and
endorsed the U.S. bishops’ call
for a “massive commitment of
the Church’s resources” to
eliminate racism and to fight
poverty in the U.S.
The NCCM officers also called
for the establishment of a parish
council in every American parish.
They urged NCCM members to
“work on the local level” to
support national legislation
implementing the report of the
National Advisory Commission
on Civil Disorders (Kerner
Report).
They called for “establishment
of standards so that every family
in the nation receives an income
above the poverty level” and for
“the repeal of laws forbidding
welfare payments to mothers and
children while there is an
unemployed father in the home.”
The resolution of parish
councils said that they would
help the laity and clergy to
cooperate in Church renewal.
“Through these councils,” the
meeting said, “consultation will
replace suspicion, cooperation
will replace apathy, and
encouragement will replace
antagonism throughout the
Church in America.”
Learn to drive
Haney’s Driving School
Teenagers receive insurance re
duction.
FRLE TRIAL LESSON
New air conditioned cars - free
pick-up.
Brush up and Beginner Courses
-457-7740
(See Yellow Pages ad)
