When the 17 wagons powered by teams of mules left Marks, Mississippi, one May day in 1968, the group of children had no idea of where exactly they were headed nor why.
For this group of four boys and two girls, ranging in age from 3 to 9 years old, it was one big adventure.
For the rest of the country, their journey would come to symbolize the plight of the poor in the Mississippi Delta and inspire a nationwide campaign founded on the beliefs of Martin Luther King, Jr.
“It was fun. It was long. It was tiring,” Nelson Johnson recalled of the journey that started on May 12, 1968 – his sixth birthday.
Nelson remembered leaving the small Quitman County town that May day and making it outside of the city limits to where they camped in a field. That night, a torrential rainstorm would fall.
What would follow would be a month-long journey that saw the children cheered and jeered.
They would be given food and water. And they would be given blank, hateful stares.
There were nights spent comfortably in churches and loving homes. Other nights would be spent in fear, sleeping in the daytime and traveling at night.
There were words of encouragement and praise. And there were words so mean and painful that 50 years later two of those six children would still be unable to speak them.
It was the Marks Mule Train, the starting point and exclamation to MLK’s Poor People’s Campaign.
“As kids, you didn’t quite understand what you were doing,” Charles Johnson said Saturday morning as he sat beneath a shade tree in the Marks City Park at an event marking the 50th anniversary of the mule train.
“I know that we had a whole lot of ‘why’ questions at the end. Momma talked to us and told us about it.. what we’d done and why it was so important.”
Their mother, Bertha Marie Burres, who had the last name Johnson at the time, was a secretary in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and had no second thoughts about bringing her six children on the journey to Washington, D.C. She quickly became known at the “queen of the mule train” and “the woman with six kids.”
The train would average about 25 to 30 miles a day. And while they started with 17 wagons, they would lose a couple during the trip. The same was true with participation as people would come and go.
But one constant was “the woman with six kids.”
The two Johnson brothers -- who both now live in Texas, not far from where their mother and older brother live in a nursing home – remembered each night there would be song and prayer. There was a food truck that had a lift on it, similar to a UHaul. And there was a similar truck that gave you a lift when you needed to go to the bathroom.
“We got to experience Port-a-potties as children,” Charles Johnson said with a laugh.
There was the happy memory of playing alongside Dr. King’s children, Dexter and Martin Luther King III.
But there was also that memory of hiding out in the showroom in a car lot in some forgotten town in Alabama, sleeping at day, surrounded by deputies, with plans to slip out of town under the shadow of night.
Another night would be spent in an armory near Atlanta after threats had been made.
“There was that feeling of fear,” Nelson Johnson recalled. “You could just feel the fear in the air.”
Still, the group continued on. They would reach Atlanta, the wagons would be disassembled and put on the trains and the “queen of the mule train” and her six children and their mules would make their way to the nation’s capital.
On June 19, the wagons crossed the Potomac and joined thousands of people from around the country to live in a shantytown known as Resurrection City that occupied the national mall for six weeks.
The Johnson children would end up staying throughout the summer and it wouldn’t be until October until they returned to Marks.
There was no fanfare. No welcoming party. No banners. No celebration.
Still, there was one memory that stuck with Charles Johnson on the day he re-entered his elementary school in Marks.
“I remember my teacher, Mrs. Lilly V. Thompson, gave me a big ol’ hug and said, ‘Welcome back.’ She squeezed me tight.”
It was her way of saying thanks.
And, 50 years later, it’s something we all should do.
Say thank you to the “queen of the mule train” and her six kids.
And remember and reflect.
And strive to do better.
Michael Banks is publisher of The Clarksdale Press Register. He can be reached at 662-627-2201, ext. 2229 or by email at mbanks@pressregister.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @MichaelBanksMS.
