“The Bank of Justice”

Dallas activists bring Poor People’s Campaign Tent City to Waxahachie on Juneteenth Weekend

By: Michael Rowley

 “I think it’s a great time.” Marcus Russell, better known to the Dallas community as Marcus X, leans back in the folding chair.  The small window unit blows cool air and creates a hum in the large empty room. His voice bounces off of the wood floor and old walls. He sits on the second-floor of the historic red-brick building that houses the Ellis County African American Hall of Fame, his hair falling to the middle of his back and a few gray hairs twisting in his beard. The break from the Texas heat and humidity is welcomed, but Russell’s energy isn’t phased by the weather: “Man, if you’re a good person the gates of Heaven is going to open up for you. Karma is going to come fast for bad people - it’s that time. Everything hidden, the darkness is coming to the light.” Below his feet, on the first floor, is a curated museum that guides viewers through the history of African Americans in the United States. The artifacts and stories that line the walls don’t start some four hundred years back, but instead with Kings and Queens of Africa who ruled before Christ and beyond.

Curiously, Waxahachie is where the Dallas activist and his fellow organizers chose to hold their three-day Poor People’s Campaign Tent City event that started on June 19th and ran through the weekend. “When you go down to Waxahachie, you see a big old tall statue of a rebel boy. And, you know, the sign down on it says ‘We honor those who died for the cause,’” quips Olinka Green over her black cat-eye frames. The co-chair (with Russell) of the Texas Poor People’s Campaign in Dallas, Green has a history of activism fighting police brutality and now organizing around similar racial and social issues. The three-day festival type of event organized by the group celebrated the day known as Juneteenth, when slaves in Texas were told they were free some two years after emancipation, and the 51st anniversary of Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign. “The goal of this event was to bring resources - to bring blackness to Waxahachie.” Green continued that main goals also included distributing thousands of pounds of food, hundreds of gallons of milk and to raise awareness amidst the community of resources like Dr. Jamal Rasheed’s African American Hall of Fame nestled in their neighborhood. “To bring this type of energy into this once Confederate town, when we are the descendants of slaves...I believe our ancestors are very happy today and I think Dr. King would be very happy for us too.”

The scrappy activist group started by pitching tents and distributing towers of cardboard boxes filled with dried goods, produce and gallons of milk to a seemingly endless line of cars that continued to materialize. Standing on the main road (Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd) in front of the Hall of Fame, a volunteer waved a sign with “Free Milk” scribbled across. Cars would make the turn, roll down their windows, explain how many were in their family and sign to receive their generous donation. If you weren’t already, you could even register to vote in this make-shift drive-through. Beads of sweat rolled down the faces of those working for the needs of the community.

As protests continued some forty minutes north in downtown Dallas (as they had for weeks following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis) there was a noticeable lack of youth amongst the crowd in Waxahachie. The event itself skewed towards relying on history to guide their present actions, informed by study and experience. Russell explained, “Texas Poor People’s Campaign is about bringing Martin Luther King’s vision together with the Ten Point Program of the Black Panthers. Martin Luther King actually wanted the Black Panthers to run the Poor People’s Campaign, it was a vision he had two weeks before he died. So it was a vision that he had, but was unfulfilled - so the torch was passed. That’s what we’re doing right now. We’re feeding the people, we’re speaking to the masses, we’re educating the people, we’re registering them to vote, we’re organizing the people and showing them what they can do.

Dr. Jamal Rasheed, an educator in Desoto, carries a sense of gravitas over the course of the event. He is the founder and president to the Ellis County African American Hall of Fame that opened its property to the organizers. With an invitation from Dr. Rasheed and as a guest of honor, Reverend Peter Johnson gave a round-table discussion about his work alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. He warned that those who walked with King, his own generation, would soon be gone. It would be up to those there listening to continue on the work that King set out to do.

When asked about the protests that have swept the nation demanding an end to police brutality, Olinka Green points out: “I think it’s strong. I think it’s a different feel. It’s different because you have young white people that are putting their bodies on the line and are using their white privilege to get things done.” Russell emphatically responds to the same question: “It’s a prison system. We need a new government. We don’t need the police, we need Community Engagement Specialists. Police were started to hunt down and enslave and kill black people. We don’t want that. We’ll put a whole new organization in there - put something new in. A cop is a job. If you believe in this, then take your gun off and your uniform off and come protest with me.”

Just weeks earlier, Dallas police department launched tear gas into peaceful protests, permanently blinded and disfigured protestors using “less-than-lethal” projectiles and arrested some six-hundred protestors as they marched across a bridge near downtown. In a metroplex that has a long history of police brutality and killings by police, the looming question is “How can we move forward?” As you walk the hall of the Ellis County African American Hall of Fame in Waxahachie, tracing the history of Africans brought to America all the way to the point of the Black Panther Party and assasination of Fred Hampton, you’ll notice there is a blank piece of wall waiting for a display.

“I think everything is going to get better. Now, the evil people are going to fight real hard, but they ain’t got a lot of time, bruh. I think good people should be happy right now - rejoicing.” Russell then stands up and walks back outside where the audio recording of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech blasts from a small speaker and bounces off the walls of the neighborhood.

To learn more about the Poor People’s Campaign and Russell’s Non-Profit, Commissary is Very Necessary, visit: https://poorpeoplescampaign.org and https://commissaryisverynecessary.org .