Smithsonian Affiliate Calendar

City of Hope: Resurrection City and the 1968 Poor People's Campaign Exhibition

Led by Drs. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph David Abernathy, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference declared poverty a national human rights issue. In response, the organization planned the Poor People’s Campaign—a grassroots, multiracial movement that drew thousands of people to Washington, D.C. For 43 days between May and June 1968, demonstrators demanded social reforms while living side-by-side on the National Mall in a tent city known as Resurrection City.