Mule Train commemoration a reminder of lingering poverty

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - Civil rights activists are gathering to remember an effort 50 years ago that brought attention to entrenched poverty in the Mississippi Delta.

The mule train was part of the Poor People’s Campaign envisioned by the Rev. Martin Luther King.

Before he was assassinated in April 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, he had witnessed hunger in the rural town of Marks, Mississippi, about 70 miles (113 kilometers) south of Memphis.

In May 1968, more than 100 people departed Marks in covered wagons pulled by mules. The caravan spent a month traveling to Atlanta. Then, people, wagons and mules boarded trains and rode to the Washington, D.C., area.