On May 11, 1968, nine caravans of poor Americans arrived in Washington, D.C., marking the first phase of the Poor People’s Campaign, a multiracial effort initiated by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. before his assassination. The caravans, which began their journey on May 2 from different regions across the country, picked up thousands of demonstrators along the way—Black, white, Latinx, and Native American activists united in demanding economic justice.

In Washington, demonstrators constructed Resurrection City, a shantytown of tents and wooden structures built on a 16-acre site near the Lincoln Memorial. It became both a symbol of protest and a temporary home for over 3,000 people, calling attention to systemic poverty in America. The campaign remains one of the most powerful yet underrecognized civil rights actions of the late 1960s.