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JUNE JORDAN
as he created his novel, we decided to secure NET's 1967 documentary
on American migrant workers,
What Harvest for the Reaper.
The shock
came when we realized that
The Grapes of Wrath
sustains a horrifying
relevance to migrant workers today. Angry about the political ir.con–
sequence of their Biafra protest, the students elected, again on their
own time, to organize a Wrath Rally. Purpose: to focus public concern
on the appalling status of migrant workers in America. For the rally,
students wrote 1968 "Modest Proposals," and invited the public as
well as appropriate state officials to attend and participate.
On
the
programs issued to the audience, the students chose two stanzas from
Shelley's "Song to the Men of England": "The seed ye sow, another
reaps: / the wealth ye find, another keeps: the robes ye weave, an–
other wears: the arms ye forge, another bears. / Sow seed, - but let
no tyrant reap; Find wealth, - let no imposter heap; Weave robes–
let not the idle wear; forge arms, - in your defence to bear." I will
never forget the dedication of the students to their purpose, the in–
tensity of their reading and planning, the fantastic transformation of
their writing into compositions of pamphleteer strength, the merciful
vigor of their competing Proposals
a
la
Jonathan Swift.
If
it can be said that their work produced no necessary legislation
and reform, it can
also
be said that this very failure instructed us all.
We learned, from the unsuccessful Biafra campaign, from the unsuc–
cessful Wrath Rally and from Gorky's depiction of violence as a corol–
lary of impoverishment much more than we could have imagined, about
poverty.
We learned about the bone and blood ironies the poor confront:
We found that the elimination of poverty requires the creation of love
and the protection of life within the context of chronic and terrible
violence.
The elimination of poverty requires powerful, right action by those
who have no power.
Thus, the elimination of poverty demands an impossible challenging
of the status quo.
And we concluded that we should begin by insisting that the
spirit
poverties of the rich and of the powerful are the first poverties
to
be
erased and then replaced by rational generosity and moral service.
Everything we read and everything we wrote, quite literally, tran–
slated into action: it became part of our hopeful, conscious lives.
June Jordan
