April 30, 2009 — vol.
44, no 36 Volunteers hand out items collected by Gathering of Hearts to impoverished residents of Lambert, Miss., in this February 2009 photo. The organization, co-founded by Mattapan resident Ines Soto-Palmarin and genealogist Antoinette Harrell, will join the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in leading the Poor People’s Campaign March this June. (Walter C. Black Sr. photo) Daniela Caride In February, Ines Soto-Palmarin left Boston driving a truck loaded with donations and headed for the Mississippi Delta. She wanted to honor the memory of her deceased husband, Jorge Palmarin Jr., by helping some of the neediest families in the country. “[The trip in February] was an intergenerational experience,” said Soto-Palmarin, who was accompanied by volunteers ranging in age from 15 to 90. “And one thing leads to another, because [people from the Mississippi Delta have] such a pressing need that people just join and want to be part of it.” In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the SCLC organized the Poor People’s Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Starting in the small city of Marks, Miss., King traveled throughout the country, gathering a group to protest peacefully in Washington for a new bill of rights for the poor. “Dr. King’s economic bill of rights called for massive government jobs programs to rebuild America’s cities,” said Harrell. “Forty-one years later, some of the same issues that Dr. King wanted to address are still alive … because some of these areas have not changed.”
Harrell said she thinks that with the economic crisis continuing to impact Americans, the timing for another march couldn’t be better.