FRIDAY: Why we need a mass poor people’s assembly & march

Contact: Faith Morris | faith@cultureliftinc.com  | 312-813-6965

               Martha Waggoner | mwaggoner@breachrepairers.org 

THE POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN: A NATIONAL CALL FOR MORAL REVIVAL PREVIEWS MASS POOR PEOPLE’S AND LOW-WAGE WORKERS’ ASSEMBLY AND MORAL MARCH ON WASHINGTON AND TO THE POLLS

Reporters can register here for the 10A ET news conference on Friday

Why? To challenge and push to and to change the immoral, scandalous and continuous refusal to act and address the systemic policy devastation (denial of living wages, healthcare, protection of voting rights, etc.) that plagues 140 million poor and low-wage Americans  (43% of adults and 52% of children) by the entire Republican caucus and some Democrats – all backed by a profit-driven ideology for the few. 

Joined virtually by poor people, low-wage workers, religious leaders, 200 partner organizations, coordinating committees from 45 states, economists and voting rights advocates, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will announce plans for a Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls—June 18, 2022.  

 A news conference will be live streamed at 10A ET on Friday, Jan. 14. Reporters can register here and the program will be live streamed here. 

A cohort of economists, including economist Dr. Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, will share an economic analysis in support of the PPC:NCMR. In March, a jointly commissioned study will be released to present findings pertaining to the inequitable economic and political treatment of the poor that continues to threaten the future of our democracy. 

Responding to the need for a movement mobilization will be two members of Congress who have led efforts to address poverty and low wealth and the interlocking injustices: Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Rep. Barbara Lee of California. Lee was among those who introduced the Third Reconstruction: Ending Poverty and Low Wealth from the Bottom Up, a House resolution with over 30 co-signers.

There must be a Third Reconstruction in America. We must, in the nonviolent moral tradition, put a face on the pain that obstructionism is causing and shift the moral narrative, build power and place before the nation and agenda and way forward that refuses to accept the lies of scarcity and the constitutionally inconsistent, morally indefensible, politically insensitive and economically insane politics we are witnessing today. 

When COVID hit, things got worse for those suffering from inequality in America. Poor and low-wage workers were the first forced to go to work, the first to get sick, and the first to die. Billionaires made over $2 trillion in the first 20 months of COVID, while 8 million more fell into poverty. Trillions of dollars were given to profit-driven corporations, some without even going through Congress. 

Before COVID exposed the fissures of poverty and racism, a grotesque 250,000 people a year (700 a day) died from poverty – not because of scarcity of resources or progressive ideas, but a scarcity of moral consciousness  Before COVID, millions were unnecessarily without health care and without a living minimum wage in the wealthiest nation in history of the world.

Before COVID, voting rights had been under assault since the 2013 Shelby County vs Holder decision; before COVID, millions of people were uninsured or underinsured; before COVID, we were spending over 53 cents of every discretionary dollar on the war economy. The politics of love and justice was already demanding that we as a nation change.

Then COVID hit and glaringly exposed the fissures of systemic racism and poverty even more. Yet, because of the outright obstructionism of McConnell’s extremist Republicans in the Senate and the gradualism of so-called moderates like Senators Manchin and Sinema, Congress has been unable to pass even a watered-down responsive step ($1.9 trillion over 10 years) to invest in the uplift of the 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this nation. These same forces refuse to pass the For the People Act or Voting Rights Advancement Act, hiding behind the non-constitutional and historically regressive racist filibuster.   

This is why poor and low-wealth people (who represent 30% of the electorate and 45% in battleground states) have decided to intensify and embolden their outcry, outreach, and organizing to shift the moral narrative in this nation. This moment demands a generationally transformative action. Organizers insist that we cannot go back to the normal before COVID. We must seize this opportunity to create a country that works for all of us.

 In 2020, over 2.7 million people showed up online when the PPC:NCMR held a mass assembly online during COVID. Campaign leaders have now declared that “what was done online must happen in the streets.” We must arrest the attention of a nation held hostage by lies about scarcity, corporate greed and voter suppression. 

Impacted speakers include Pam Garrison of West Virginia; Callie Greer of Alabama; Emilee Johnson of Mississippi; Robin Brown of Ohio; Leon Tyer of Pennsylvania; Denita Jones of Texas and Mary Jane Shanklin of Kansas. 

Other speakers include SEIU President Mary Kay Henry; Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn; voting rights attorney Caitlin Swain, co-director of Forward Justice; and Dr. Wendsler Nosie of the Apache Stronghold in Arizona. 

Participating faith leaders include Rev. Terri Hord Owens, general minister and president of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); Jim Winkler, president, National Council of Churches; Rev. Dr. Susan Frederick Gray, president, Unitarian Universalist Association; and Rabbi Jonah Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.  

“The Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls is not just a day of action. This is a declaration of an ongoing, committed, nonviolent, truth-telling, multi-racial, interfaith moral movement. We will 1) Shift the moral narrative, 2) Build and Mobilize political voting power, and 3) Make real policies to fully address poverty and low wealth from the bottom up and protect and expand voting rights and the fundamental infrastructure of our democracy,” said Bishop William J. Barber II, D.Min., and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, national co-chairs of the PPC:NCMR. 

America must address simultaneously systemic racism, systemic poverty, denial of healthcare, ecological devastation, the war economy and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism and white supremacy with a movement agenda that brings together blacks, whites, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans - people from every race, creed, color, region, sexuality, united by a moral fusion agenda and long-term nonviolent moral activism and analysis informed by our deepest constitutional and religious values.

Bishop Barber is president of Repairers of the Breach, and Rev. Dr. Theoharis is director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice. Repairers of the Breach and the Kairos Center are the co-sponsors and anchor organizations of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.