Poor People's Campaign 50 Years Later

By Sheilah Kast,

Melissa Gerr

Published April 4, 2018 at 12:31 PM EDT

Fifty years ago today the landscape of race relations in America changed in a single tragic instant, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.

Rev. Stephen Tillett, president of the Anne Arundel branch of the NAACP and pastor at Asbury-Broadneck United Methodist Church and Rev. Lauren Jones of Reid Temple AME Church in Glenn Dale, discuss why Dr. King’s last months focused on economic justice and why his Poor People’s Campaign is still painfully relevant today.

Find information about Tillett's book, "Stop Falling for the Okey Doke" here.

Read Jones' blog Throw Up and Theology, here.

Learn more about today's Poor People's Campaign, here.

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Sheilah Kast

Sheilah Kast is the host of On The Record, Monday-Friday, 9:30-10:00 am.

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Melissa Gerr

Melissa Gerr is a Senior Producer for On the Record. She started in public media at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn., where she is from, and then worked as a field producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting in Portland. She made the jump to audio-lover in Baltimore as a digital media editor at Mid-Atlantic Media and Laureate Education, Inc. and as a field producer for "Out of the Blocks." Her beat is typically the off-beat with an emphasis on science, culture and things that make you say, 'Wait, what?'

See stories by Melissa Gerr