King Day: Spirit Lives On in L.A. : Group Gathers Food, Clothing for Homeless, Decries Arms Spending

Doris McDaniels got her start in 1934 at age 16, working alongside her parents in Upton Sinclair’s socialist campaign for California governor. Today, at 68, she prides herself on being an old leftist, and remains a loyal member of the International Workers of the World.

And it is because “things are getting worse, I’m afraid,” that McDaniels found herself campaigning again on Monday. This time, she walked door-to-door introducing herself as a member of the Martin Luther King Jr. Coalition and asking people to celebrate the civil rights leader’s birthday by contributing to the homeless.

By the end of the day, McDaniels and about 200 volunteers had filled the spacious lobby of Holman United Methodist Church with bags of clothing, blankets and food. The goods will be distributed at eight community centers and places of worship scattered throughout Los Angeles County, organizers said. This added to the outpouring of charity in recent days, prompted to a large degree by the cold weather blamed in the deaths of two homeless people over the weekend.

But charity wasn’t the only point. The effort was organized by four groups: the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (known as SANE), Jobs With Peace and the Southern California Freeze Campaign. The volunteers also delivered a political message about the mathematics of poverty and militarism.

The Rev. James Lawson, Holman’s pastor and president of the Los Angeles SCLC chapter, had marched with King. In a church rally for the volunteers, Lawson said King’s goal was “to get the United States to live up to its own best self, not its worst self.”

King hoped, Lawson said, “to export from this nation not bombs that kill women and children in Vietnam and Central America and Southern Africa but a vison of justice.”

And so, like the other volunteers in the campaign Monday, Desirree Tademy and Ben Schiessl carried pamphlets illustrating how a single $200 million MX missile could pay for the $25,000 annual salary of 8,000 teachers.

Down on 39th Place, the going was slow at first for Tademy and Schiessl. A lot of people weren’t home; some, perhaps, were watching the King birthday parade a few blocks away on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. And some people “just said no,” a perplexed Tademy said.

Then they approached a woman washing her car.

“I was going to call Goodwill to come down (and) pick (up) some clothes,” Yolanda Henderson said. “So they caught us at the right time.”

A few miles away, near Hancock Park, McDaniels and her partner, Karen Lacy, split up to canvass opposite sides of the street. At one door, a woman gave McDaniels a check for $3. The pair got several promises of food and clothing from a few others. The volunteers told the donors that they would come by a short time later to pick up the goods.

“The response is great,” Lacy said. “I say Martin Luther King, and they say, ‘Oh! OK!.’ Even the maids say they’re going to leave a few cans of food out front.”

Cars and pickup trucks returned to Holman United Methodist Church loaded with food, clothing, soap, toys and other offerings.

And in a closing rally, with cars still driving up, other volunteers shared stories.

Helen Travis told of the man who promised to give. But when she returned to make the pickup, “he said, ‘I looked around and I couldn’t find a thing. Could you wait a few minutes so I can go to the Seven-11 to get something to give you?’ ”

“I said, ‘Just give me a check.’ So he gave me a check for $5.”