March on Washington; PPC

 National Poor People’s Campaign.  March on Washington and to the Polls.

Image and link is up on our blog.

https://www.dsanorthstar.org/blog/march-on-washington-and-to-the-polls

 

 

Mass Poor People’s Campaign and Low Wage Workers.

Poor People's & Low-Wage Workers' Assembly & Moral March on Washington, D.C. & to the Polls, Livestream Party for those unwilling or unable to travel to Washington DC for the event. Refreshments will be provided. Event is free and open to the public. The venue is St. Paul’s United Methodist Church, 910 NW 38th St, Lawton OK 73505. The date and time are June 29, 9 AM to 1 PM.

 

https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org

Poor People's Campaign- March on Washington

 

‘We Won’t Be Silent or Unseen Anymore’: Poor People’s Campaign To Lead DC Assembly Jessica Corbett  June 17, 2022 Common Dreams Bishop William Barber, a campaign co-chair, said the United States' current poverty level "is actually morally indefensible, constitutionally inconsistent, politically insensitive, and economically insane." Activists with the Poor People's Campaign rally in Washington, D.C. on December 13, 2021. , Poor People's Campaign/Twitter   The Poor People's Campaign plans to hold a "generationally transformative and disruptive gathering of poor and low-wealth people, state leaders, faith communities, moral allies, unions, and partnering organizations" in the U.S. capital on Saturday, June 18. The Mass Poor People's and Low-Wage Workers' Assembly and Moral March on Washington is scheduled to begin at 9:30 am local time. The campaign has put together an online FAQ page for participants. Contrasting the planned event with a right-wing mob's attack on the U.S. Capitol last year, Bishop William Barber, the campaign's co-chair, said on Democracy Now!Friday that poor people and allies from across the country "are coming nonviolently to Washington, D.C." Their key messages for those in power, Barber said, include: "We won't be silent or unseen anymore." "The time has come for us to have a Third Reconstruction," Barber continued. "We had one in the 1800s, one in the 1960s. We need one now, that's about policy, reconstructing a moral framework, political framework in this country, because to have this level of poverty, that's un-talked-about too often and unseen and unheard, is actually morally indefensible, constitutionally inconsistent, politically insensitive, and economically insane." "So people are coming," he said, "but poor people are coming to say not only do we need a moral reset—and low-wage workers are saying it—we represent 32% of the electorate now, poor people do, and 45% of the electorate in battleground states. And it's time for that power to be organized, mobilized, and felt in every election throughout this country." Discussing the June 18 gathering and related eventspreceding it, Barber emphasized earlier this year that the D.C. assembly "is not just a day of action," but a "declaration of an ongoing, committed, nonviolent, truth-telling, multiracial, interfaith moral movement." "We are not in this for a moment, but for a movement," he said. "June 18, and everything that leads up to it and after it, will be for the fundamental shifting of the narrative and changing this sickness that we're seeing in our nation." Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, who also appeared on Democracy Now! Friday, highlighted how the fight "to implement a single-payer universal healthcare system" and the "demand for living-wage jobs, for adequate housing, for immigration reform, for protecting this democracy, they're all connected." An organizing manual for Saturday's event also notes the connections and declares that "we must do more to make America live up to her possibilities." Specifically, the document calls for doing more: to fully address the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of healthcare, militarism and the false narrative of Christian nationalism; to change the narrative and build the power of those most impacted by these injustices; and to realize a Third Reconstruction agenda that can build this country from the bottom up and realize the nation we have yet to be. Those were also the focal topics at a Wednesday briefing with members of Congress, which featured remarks from Barber and Theoharis as well as several low-income Americans who called on Congress to actually prioritize people like them in policy decisions. "Every dollar that we spend destroying communities overseas is a dollar not spent on universal healthcare, affordable housing, or meaningful social services and public education," said Kyle Bibby, a military veteran from New Jersey. "Every youth sent overseas for war is a life at risk for a sacrifice that we cannot justify. Every veteran returning who is saddled with trauma is a high toll to pay for wars that never had a clear goal—and many are returning to underfunded and forgotten communities.” Morgan Leavy, a barista at Texas' first unionized Starbucks, said that "if a bunch of mostly young adults with little-to-no organizing experience can put enough pressure on a multibillion-dollar company to raise the minimum wage in less than a year, we absolutely expect our government to be able to do so too." As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, Leavy is the kind of person the campaign co-chairs urged President Joe Biden to meet with in D.C. Lamenting that "corporations are treated like people and people are treated like things," Barber asked, "Why don't poor people get meetings in the Oval Office instead of corporations?" "It is time for the president to act on his pre-election promise to address poverty," he said, noting that "labor unions are joining our call to the president to use his power to lift the voices of impacted people and to act now." Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.

Immigration Justice Day- Moral Monday _ Poor People's Campaign

 streamed.  You can watch it now,

Join the Poor People’s Campaign for a Moral Monday on Immigration on April 26th at 3pm ET/ 12pm PT to demand respect, dignity, and human rights for all immigrants!

We’ll be joined by immigrant leaders on the frontlines of movements for social change, demanding that we transform our broken immigration system with comprehensive and just immigration reform. From de-militarizing the border to the repeal of mandatory detention, deportation, child detention and family separation, to ensuring full access to public welfare and social programs and permanent protection for ALL 11 million undocumented immigrants, we are coming together to say that EVERYBODY has the right to live and thrive in this country. 

*This online event will be interpreted into ASL and Spanish, and open captioned.*

Immigrant rights are human rights. Our nation’s dehumanizing and violent immigration system embodies the five interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. And we can’t be silent anymore!

Click here for a digital toolkit to amplify the Campaign’s 14 Policy Priorities for the first 100 days!

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En Español:

Súmate a la Campaña de la Gente Pobre para un Lunes Moral de Inmigración el 26 de abril a las 3pm Hora Este/12pm Hora Pacífico, ¡y exige respeto, dignidad y derechos humanos para todxs lxs inmigrantes!

Nos acompañarán líderes inmigrantes de las primeras líneas de los movimientos sociales, para exigir que transformemos nuestro roto sistema de inmigración con una reforma de inmigración abarcadora y justa. Desde la desmilitarización de la frontera hasta el rechazo de órdenes de detención, deportación, detención infantil y separación de familias, y para asegurar pleno acceso a programas de ayudas del gobierno y bienestar social, al igual que protecciones permanentes para TODOS los 11 millones de inmigrantes indocumentadxs, nos juntamos para decir que TODO EL MUNDO tiene derecho a vivir y prosperar en este país. 

Los derechos de las personas inmigrantes son derechos humanos. El sistema de inmigración deshumanizante y violento de nuestra nación encuerpa las cinco injusticias interconectadas del racismo sistémico, la pobreza, la guerra económica, la devastación ecológica y la narrativa distorsionada del nacionalismo religioso. ¡Ya no podemos guardar más silencio!

Poor People's Campaign - Sacramento

From April 3rd to April 13th, the California Poor People's Campaign is organizing a statewide Truth & Poverty Tour to shine a light on the plight, fight, and insight of the poor across California, and the real national emergencies that require immediate attention. We are coming to Sacramento, CA on April 4th for our second tour stop. We will be hosting a public Poor People's Town Hall, and then a Poor People's March and Rally. RSVP11 AM-1 PM: Town hall Meeting, Community Space, 400 16th St., Sacramento 1-2 PM: March and Rally, Loaves and Fishes at 12th and North C St. (Cul de Sac), Sacramento We’ll meet at 400 16th Street, at the corner of D Street. We’ll be running shuttle vans/cars from the Target store parking lot at Broadway and Riverside Blvd. Please park at the far end of the parking lot from the store, along Riverside Blvd. The shuttles will be there beginning at 10:30 am. They’ll be available to bring you back after the event as well.  For shuttle service info please contact Mario at 916 224-4400.  For more info contact: Kevin Carter, kcwethepeople@gamil.com, Faye Wilson Kennedy, fayek@springmail.com Join us in lifting the voices of the poor and marginalized in our community and highlighting solutions to our nation’s fundamental issues. You won’t want to miss out! Forward together, California Poor People’s Campaign

Reject the Border Wall _ The Poor People's Campaign

Our president and his enablers are pushing an agenda of fear, racism and white nationalism while millions of government workers and families suffer as a consequence.

With Martin Luther King Jr. Day a week away, it’s only fitting this movement not simply commemorate Dr. King and the original Poor People’s Campaign’s mission, we re-consecrate it by using our voices and bodies to protest and organize against the atrocities this administration continues to promote. 

Help hold our elected officials accountable: Make a call to your senator now and demand they end this shutdown, reject any compromise for this border wall and stand firm against the declaration of a state of emergency. Call now >>

Forward together, not one step back.

Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II and Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis

President of Repairers of the Breach & Director of the Kairos Center

Co-Chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

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As we speak, the Trump administration and the Senate are trying to divide us. They are using a racist border wall to immorally justify holding hundreds of thousands of federal workers hostage and millions of others are facing the loss of vital services from healthcare to food safety to affordable housing as the shutdown continues. At the same time, they are fueling contempt and cruelty towards migrants at the border and our undocumented neighbors. It is poor and working people on both sides of the border who face the consequences of these extremist policies and divisive tactics.

There can be no Congressional compromise that includes a dime of funding for a wall and we must stand against any future attempt to institute a state of emergency by the president.

We don’t have time to waste. Lives are at stake, and those who are most vulnerable are caught in the crossfire.

Demand your elected officials reject this border wall compromise, commit to end the government shutdown and stand against the invocation of a state of emergency. Click to call your senator now.

Poor People's Campaign - Week 2

The California Poor People’s Campaign is uniting people and organizations across the state to challenge the evils of systemic racism, poverty, the war economy and ecological devastation.  This second week of the campaign focused on Systemic Racism, Voting Rights, Immigration, Islamaphobia and the destruction of Indigenous communities.  

The May 21 non violent direct action  in Sacramento followed the May 14 launch of the nationwide poor people’s campaign. In the first action, on May 14s hundreds participated in non violent direct action and were arrested, including Poor People’s Campaign co chairs William J. Barber II, and Liz Theoharis. They were taken into custody along with over a hundred people from various states. Non violent events were held in over 35 state capitols the same day. 

At the conclusion of the 40 days, on June 23, poor people and clergy and advocates from coast to coast will join together for a mass mobilization at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Speakers at the Sacramento event included representatives from CAIR . indigenous communities, Wes White of the Salinas Homeless Union, Melina Abdullah, Black Lives Matter, and religious leaders from numerous communities including the PICO Network. 

Poor People's Campaign Comes to Sacramento

California Poor People’s Campaign 

Some 300 activists from a wide variety of organizations rallied at the California  Capitol today claiming Somebody’s Hurting Our People : and We are Not Going to Take It Anymore !

Some 55% of the people in California are poor or low income- a total of 21.4 million residents. This incudes 65% of children and 57 % of women.  From 1979 to 2012 the income of the top 1 % grew by 190 percent, while the income of the bottom 99% decreased by 6 %. Meanwhile the richest 1 % of California residents are expected to receive 14% of the new federal tax law. Their average tax cut in 2027 is expected to be $14,170, while the poorest 20% are expected to pay $270 per year more.

Danny Glover

"Though we have a reputation as being ’liberal’ in California, the four pillars of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy are rampant in our state and are ‘hidden in plain sight.’ With the 1% prospering in their unregulated wealth, California has the highest poverty rate when housing is factored in. We must shine a bright light on the oppression and interlocking injustices which poor, impacted communities must face everyday regarding local to statewide issues, including but not limited to: immigration and ICE, racist police violence, homelessness, evictions, inequity in education, the school-to-prison pipeline, gentrification, rising cost of living, low wages, and the continuous commodification of Mother Earth causing ecocide in poor communities, all of which could be eliminated in California if our state's leaders and legislators would create policies that had human rights and non-partisan morality at their core." - Kait Ziegler, Co-Chair of California Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

Advocates for the poor marched around the Capitol and briefly occupied a street intersection to demand attention to the issues of poverty. 

Protests and other activities during this first week will focus on child poverty, women in poverty and people with disabilities. Subsequent weeks will focus on systemic racism, veterans and the war economy, ecological devastation, inequality, and our nation’s distorted moral narrative.

Across the nation :

The plan is to have simultaneous "waves" of action across the country calling attention to the "enmeshed evils," including systemic racism and America's war economy that organizers say are contributing to so many living in poverty, the majority of whom are white.

According to the U.S. Census, there are nearly 41 million people living in poverty, though Barber believes that number is off.

He points to research by the Institute for Policy Studies, which estimates 140 million Americans are living in poverty when items beyond income are considered, including out of pocket costs for food, clothing, and utilities.

"It's just constant juggling, figuring out what bill to pay and what not," says Terrence Wise, a fast food worker for 20 years.

He lives in Kansas City but is making the trip to Missouri's capital, Jefferson City, to protest.

As a shift manager at McDonald's, he makes $10.25 an hour. His fiancé is a home healthcare worker who makes $12 an hour. Wise says it is difficult to make ends meet while raising their three teenage daughters.

"And it's really dangerous when we are skipping meals or having to buy less food. Now you are not only struggling financially, you're possibly affecting the health of your family and your children."

Wise is a leading voice in the push to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour.

He hopes that the new Poor People's campaign helps make Americans more mindful of the struggles low-income people go through.

"I'm hoping it shakes America's conscience — that it makes many more aware," Wise says. "The goal is to bring more and more Americans into the movement and help make things better on all levels for everyone."

At the conclusion of the 40 days, on June 23, poor people, clergy and advocates from California and coast to coast will join together for a mass mobilization at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. They’ll then return to their states to continue building the campaign, which is a multi-year effort.

Join the Poor People's Campaign for Justice -SACRAMENTO

‘Our People Are Being Hurt and We Won’t be Silent Anymore’

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CaliforniaPoor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival To Kick Off Six Weeks of Non-Violent Direct Action Monday in Sacramento

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Protests Planned in over 30 State Capitals, Washington, D.C.

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Movement Demands Sweeping Overhaul of Nation’s Voting Rights Laws, Policies to Address Poverty, Ecological Devastation, War Economy

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA—The CaliforniaPoor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will kick off a six-week season of nonviolent direct action Monday in Sacramento.  The Campaign is demanding a massive overhaul of the nation’s voting rights laws, new programs to lift up the 140 million Americans living in poverty, immediate attention to ecological devastation and measures to curb militarism and the war economy. 

The Monday rally in California is one of over 30 actions across the country by poor and disenfranchised people, clergy and advocates who will engage in 40 days of nonviolent direct action and voter mobilization, among other activities. As a movement, we aim at transforming the nation’s political, economic and moral structures by building on the work of the original Poor People’s Campaign 50 years ago. 

To emphasize the urgent necessity for action,hundreds of participants are joining ‘Freedom Trains’,in solidarity with their 1968 counter parts. These caravans will be launching from  Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. To Commemorate the daily hardships that Women  endure, these caravans will embark on Mother’s Day, May 13th, to join forces in Sacramento to focus on the first week’s theme: Somebody’s Hurting Our People: Women, Youth, Disabled, Children in Poverty and Right to Education.

Bring Back May Day

Most of the world recognizes May 1 — May Day — as International Workers’ Day. Here in one of the few countries that doesn’t, it’s worth pausing to ask how U.S. workers are doing.

At an event last December, Fight for $15 organizer Terrence Wise recalled “going to bed at night, ignoring my own stomach’s rumbling, but having to hear my three little girls’ stomachs rumble. That’s something no parent should have to endure.”

Wise was marking the launch of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

Last month, the Institute for Policy Studies and the Poor People’s Campaign released The Souls of Poor Folk, a report on 50 years of change in the issues that affect working people, and particularly those at the bottom. We looked at systemic racism, poverty, militarism, and ecological devastation.

We found some startling and unhappy results. For the most part, workers like Wise are struggling hard to get by.

With the destruction of industries and the cities that housed them, the nature of our economy has shifted. Although the official unemployment rate is low, employment today often means low-wage work that offers little job security.

Our society’s treatment of workers has changed, too. For example, 28 states have passed so-called “right to work” laws that undermine the ability of workers to organize.

THE SOULS OF POOR FOLK

Auditing America after 1968's Poor People's Campaign 

That’s meant steadily declining union membership, which keeps workers from getting their fair share of the wealth produced by the U.S. economy over the past 50 years. Despite enormous growth in the overall economy, wages for the bottom 80 percent of workers have remained largely stagnant.

In Celebration of Contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The New Poor People’s Campaign:

In Celebration of the Life and Contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The new Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is an outgrowth of Rev. William J. Barber II’s “Forward Together, Not One Step Back”/ Moral Monday campaigns that confronted the conservative North Carolina legislature during 2013- 2016 and became a model for similar campaigns in several other states.   The new Poor People’s campaign was organized nationally in 2017.  The campaign website provides a good description of the progressive principles on which it is based.  The following history of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign is from their website – edited for length. -  Duane Campbell

Dr. King’s Vision: The Poor People’s Campaign of 1967-68

Why a Poor People’s Campaign?

Just a year before his assassination, at a Southern Christian Leadership Conference staff retreat in May 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

I think it is necessary for us to realize that we have moved from the era of civil rights to the era of human rights…[W]hen we see that there must be a radical redistribution of economic and political power, then we see that for the last twelve years we have been in a reform movement…That after Selma and the Voting Rights Bill, we moved into a new era, which must be an era of revolution…In short, we have moved into an era where we are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society.

Later that year, in December 1967, Rev. Dr. King announced the plan to bring together poor people from across the country for a new march on Washington. This march was to demand better jobs, better homes, better education—better lives than the ones they were living. Rev. Dr. Ralph Abernathy explained that the intention of the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 was to “dramatize the plight of America’s poor of all races and make very clear that they are sick and tired of waiting for a better life.” Rev. Dr. King proposed;

If you are, let’s say, from rural Mississippi, and have never had medical attention, and your children are undernourished and unhealthy, you can take those little children into the Washington hospitals and stay with them there until the medical workers cope with their needs, and in showing it your children you will have shown this country a sight that will make it stop in its busy tracks and think hard about what it has done.