MARKS, Mississippi — It's the 53rd Anniversary of the Mule Train, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s visit to Marks, Mississippi, and the start of the Poor People's Campaign. Local 24 News anchor Katina Rankin went to Quitman County to see how they celebrated the day.
These wagon wheels may not look like much to you, but for so many people here in Marks, Mississippi, it signifies hope, and it serves as a reminder of how their heroic efforts still benefit you today.
Have you ever paid attention to a wagon wheel? The wheel is symbolic of motion, continuous motion. It revolves on an axle. It thrust not just a wagon but a locomotive, vehicle, other modes of transportation forward.
In 1968 thirteen wagons each pulled by two mules kicked off the Poor People's Campaign. According to the King Institute, the Poor People's Campaign was an effort to demand jobs, a fair minimum wage, and education for poor adults and children.
"When you talk about zero income, that's a hopeless state to be in. Thousands upon thousands of people here in the Mississippi Delta without any income whatsoever," said Mule Train Historical Society President Dr. Hilliard Lackey.
Dr. Lackey says Dr. King did not know this would be his last attempt to bring attention to the war on poverty. He was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee, before the actual wagon ride began. Those who participated saw it as a way to honor his life and legacy by finishing what he began.
"The only thing we had to look forward to was going to church on Sunday," said City of Marks Mayor Joe Shegog.
"It was a lot of hopeless people in this vicinity, in this county; especially this community, so the Mule Train was to bring hope," said Dr. Lackey.
Fifty-three years later, wagon wheels or markers will mark his visit to the Mississippi Delta county. The first leg of the journey, Silent Grove Baptist Church, where Dr. King stopped to rally support for the Poor People's Campaign, Valley Queen Baptist Chruch when he visited a local head start program and saw homes and people living in extreme poverty -- and the infamous Cotton Street neighborhood where he wept and where what he saw inspired him to take up the fight against poverty and economic justice.
Then there was Madison S. Palmer High School where nearly three hundred students and thirteen teachers left the school to the groundskeeper's house where a high school science teacher housed and took care of the mules, Tent City, and the Quitman County Courthouse where the protestors were met with violence by state troopers. A teacher and student were injured on the courthouse lawn. Finally, the jailhouse or sheriff's office where Ralph Abernathy then decided to bring Memphis into the fold recruiting Bluff City residents to protest. By late that afternoon, eight buses full of protestors from Memphis arrived ready to join the Mule Train.
Not only did the Mule Train get such programs as Pell Grants that students use today, but also the WIC program to feed children. It also help set the stage for future social justice movements. Voices of America's poor were heard, and poverty became visible, clear.
"We got the Fair Housing Act of 1968 while the Mule Train was in progress. We also got the groundwork laid for Pell Grants, and the school system could no longer turn down free and reduced meals in school," said Dr. Lackey.
"It's left up to those who are living who can remember some of the things and witnessed some of these things that happened to keep the dream alive," said Mayor Shegog.
Remember how our story began with a wagon wheel. It has been the theme without, and it is how our story will end because without the foundation of the wheel, it would be difficult to produce movement. It was the wheels of those wagons that propelled the Poor People's Campaign forward, and those wagon wheels will now be parked permanently along the Mule Train Interpretative Trail in Marks, Mississippi.
