2 march 1968 & barbara mccoy

#OTD Friday 2 March 1968 Barbara McCoy, a youth worker, speaks to a crowd of 600 young people at Bethlehem Baptist Church (2458 Martin Luther King, Jr Ave, SE). McCoy worked at the one of the United Planning Organization's 10 neighborhood centers. She was there to talk with fellow youth workers about the impending end of the Neighborhood Development Youth Program, funded by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which had provided jobs for thousands of young people.

When she looked out in the audience, she saw young people with smiling and determined faces. She also saw signs and posters demanding that the jobs program be continued. 

She shared the dais with Tony Henry, deputy director of the Poor People's Campaign, and Julius Hobson, activist and former director of the Congress of Racial Equality, among others. 

Please comment below. Did you know Barbara McCoy? Did you attend the rally? Did you get a job through the NDYP? Were you a member of Bethlehem Baptist Church? Do you recognize anyone on the dais? Do you recognize the photographer in the back on the left? You may comment privately here.

Photo source: Courtesy DC Public Library Special Collections, 1968. Paul Schmick, photographer.
Betty James, "Join King Drive Youths Urged," Washington Post 3 March 1968.
Chris Myers Asch and George Derek Musgrove, Chocolate City: A History of Race and Democracy 2017.