The Poor People’s Campaign and its Sweetest Backer

Ben & Jerry’s is marking the fiftieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign with a special display from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture about the civil rights struggle. The exhibit is on display throughout 2018 at Ben & Jerry’s ice cream factory in Waterbury, Vt., which is Vermont’s largest single tourist attraction, with 400,000 visitors each year. This is the Smithsonian’s first exhibit at a corporate location. At the unveiling of the exhibit, Ben & Jerry’s founder Jerry Greenfield talks about why the company is the lone corporate sponsor of the modern Poor People’s Campaign against racism, poverty and militarism, and a Smithsonian curator discusses the purpose and challenge of having a civil rights exhibit at an ice cream factory. (June 27, 2018 broadcast)The

Jerry Greenfield and Dr. Aaron Bryant, co-founder, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, curator at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture