She was not alone. Seventy-five others - most from Marks, some from far away - joined Burres and her rag-tag clan for what was known as the Poor People's Campaign of 1968. Launched from the little Delta town in Quitman County, the group marched in mule-drawn wagons to Atlanta, where they boarded a train for the capital to fight for better social services.
This weekend, several organizations will come together to re-enact the historic march that was conceived by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and carried out by people eager for a better life. At 12:30 p.m. Saturday, the commemorative march - named the Poor People's March for Economic Human Rights - will kick off at the Road Side Park at Mississippi 6 and Charlie Pride Highway in Marks.
Before reaching Washington, D.C., on Aug. 23 for a weeklong program, the march will stop in several cities along the way in states such as Tennessee, Georgia, Kentucky, West Virginia, North Carolina and Virginia. Unlike those in the original campaign, however, participants of the commemorative event will drive from city to city in order to complete their journey in three weeks.
"We want to bring out the work of Dr. Martin Luther King into the forefront," said Galen Tyler, chairman of the local organizing committee for Kensington Welfare Rights Union, one of the groups behind the anniversary march. "The 1968 Poor People's Campaign was not talked about as much as some of Dr. King's other efforts, and we think that his message back then was as important as it is today: There is extreme poverty in the richest country in the world, and something needs to be done about it."
The first march secured several victories for poverty-stricken Americans, said Dr. Hilliard Lackey, a former Marks resident who wrote Marks, Martin and the Mule Train, a book about the 1968 march. During that march, the Fair Housing Act was passed by Congress, federal Pell Grants were created and student financial aid was expanded, Lackey said.
Her children now grown and her long march behind her, Burres also reflected on the gains of the campaign that took her family to Washington, D.C.
"We were able to get food stamps and Social Security and get better health care than we had before," Burres said from her home in Marks. "That was a big help for a lot of people in the country, because we had poor health and no jobs. The people in charge of the programs in Quitman County at that time just didn't want to help black people. So, we used the mule train to get people stirred up and get things changing."
But in the course of 35 years, the country has let its homeless population grow and its efforts to help them slip, Lackey said. The march will bring the picture of America's poor and needy back into focus.
And it all starts in Marks.
"Marks, as we see it, is a historical site," said Sam McCray, staff representative case worker for U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who supports and participates in the event. "What happened there 35 years ago had a permanent effect on the whole nation and on the whole world. So, we are going to celebrate that period, and at the same time we'll remind folks where we have come from, and hopefully we'll have grown from that point so we won't have to go back to separate schools and employment discrimination."
The commemorative march, which also marks the 40-year anniversary of King's "I Have a Dream" speech, will also make a stop in Robinsonville before heading to Batesville on Sunday.
At 5 p.m. Saturday, guests such as Thompson, President Emeritus of Southern Christian Leadership Conference Dr. Joseph Lowery, President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists Bill Lucy, and other religious, political and community leaders will speak at the Mississippi Casino Worker's Council at 2478 Casino Strip Blvd.
For more information call 1-800-570-7455 or 663-326-9003.