On eve of primary in Texas, poor people speak out in virtual program

Contact: Martha Waggoner | mwaggoner@breachrepairers.org 

On eve of primary election in Texas, Poor People’s Campaign holds 5-state virtual gathering that includes TX, OK, LA, AR & KS

Gathering is next step toward Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls on June 18th 

IN-PERSON RALLIES PLANNED FOR OH, WI, NC, DC, NY, PA, CA & TN

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival continues its march toward Washington with a Mobilization Tour virtual stop on Feb. 28 that includes Texas on the eve of the primary election there. 

The priorities and demands of poor and low-wealth Texans and their neighbors in  Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkansas and Kansas will be front and center as we continue 

to demonstrate the voting and moral power of those most impacted by the policy violence of the US Congress and state legislatures. 

The stop of The Mass Poor People's & Low-Wage Workers' Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls Mobilization Tour begins online at 7 p.m CT/8 p.m. ET on Monday, Feb. 28. 

Faith leaders and artists also will join the program, which will be live streamed here. 

All these states suffer from high poverty, voter suppression, denial of healthcare and the lack of living minimum wage: 

PLI=poverty/low-income

But poor and low-income people in these states also voted in high percentages in the 2020 presidential election: Arkansas 47%; Louisiana 40%;  Oklahoma, 45%; Texas, 34% and Kansas, 38%

These numbers show that a fusion coalition of Black, white, Latino, Asian and Native poor people and their allies can shift the outcome of elections and public policy. We will use the tour to declare that we must change the moral narrative and that we must resist the lie of scarcity. 

The Mobilization Tour will make at least 10 stops nationwide to Mobilize, Organize, Register and Educate people for a movement that votes. 

Speakers will demand that this nation do MORE to live up to its possibilities:

• MORE to fully address the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of health care, militarism and the war economy and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism. 

• MORE to change the narrative and build the power of those most impacted by these injustices. 

• MORE to realize a Third Reconstruction agenda that can build this country from the bottom up and realize the nation we have yet to be. 

The reality of 140 million people who are poor or low-wealth and just one $400 emergency away from being poor – and who represent every race, color, creed, religion, sexual orientation, ability and political party and account for 43.5% of the people living in the richest nation in the world – is a moral crisis. 

In-person stops begin March 14 in Cleveland, followed by Madison, Wisconsin,  Raleigh, North Carolina, DC, New York City, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Memphis and the Delta of Mississippi. 

The June 18th assembly in DC will be a generationally transformative declaration of the power of poor and low-wealth people and our moral allies to say that this system is killing ALL of us and we can’t…we won’t…we refuse to be silent anymore!

“It is NOT just a day of action. It is a declaration of an ongoing, committed moral movement to 1) shift the moral narrative; 2) build power; and 3) make real policies to fully address poverty and low wealth from the bottom up.”

—Bishop William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. co-chairs of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival