Our votes = demands: Poor people speak at 2 NC stops
If We Ever Needed To Vote: Bishop Barber, Repairers of the Breach lead 2nd leg of North Carolina nonpartisan voter organizing tour
Tour makes a virtual stop in Fayetteville, in-person stop in Elizabeth City with aim of organizing & mobilizing poor people, low-wage workers to vote in 2022 midterms
An organizing tour of North Carolina’s congressional districts to turn out the vote of poor and low-income people continues next week with a virtual stop in Fayetteville and an in-person program in Elizabeth City.
Bishop William J. Barber II, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, and impacted people will participate in both programs. They are part of the Mass Mobilization Organizing Tour of NC Congressional Districts with the theme of “If We Ever Needed to Vote for Democracy and Justice, We Sure Do Need to Vote Now.”
Partners with Repairers include: Fight for $15, Beloved Community Center, The Justice Coalition, Forward Justice, the North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign, NC Second Chance Alliance and Transformative Justice Coalition.
The stop in Fayetteville – which is part of the 7th Congressional District – begins at 4 p.m. ET on Monday, Oct. 3, and will be aired on WIDU radio 1600 AM and also live streamed here. The program in Elizabeth City – which is part of the 1st Congressional District – will begin at 7 p.m. ET at Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church, 320 Culpepper St. It also will be live streamed here.
The numbers show that poor people and low-wage workers who are low-propensity voters have the power to change North Carolina’s political landscape when they vote.
About 3.4 million poor and low-income people in North Carolina are eligible to vote with 2.2 million voting in the 2020 presidential election, according to the study titled “Waking the Sleeping Giant: Low-Income Voters and the 2020 Elections.” released in October 2021 by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
This shows that over 60% of poor and low-income people voted but over one-third did not, meaning it’s imperative to get these low propensity voters to the polls. In addition, 2 million North Carolina workers make less than $15 an hour — that’s almost 50% of the state’s workforce. And 1 million people are uninsured.
An earlier study of the 2016 election showed that poor and low-income people can change the political calculus of this nation if just an additional small percentage of them vote in 15 states, including 19% in North Carolina.
In North Carolina, 44% of people are poor or low-income—a total of 4.6 million residents. This includes 53% of children (1.2 million), 46% of women (2.3 million), 58% of Black people (1.2 million), 67% of Latinx people (699,000), and 36% of white people (2.2 million).
A Mountain Moral Monday will be held later in October in Asheville. Previous organizing meetings were held in Greensboro, Wilmington, Wilson and Winston-Salem.
Along with impacted people, moral leaders and all candidates are welcome to come and see data and hear from people.
The agenda of the meetings include discussions of the power of poor and low-income voters and why voting is critical to winning our demands. In addition, local leaders will discuss GOTV programs in their counties, and poor and low-wage, low-wealth people will tell their stories.
On a national level, the study about low-income voting showed that of the 158 million people who voted in 2020, over 50 million – or nearly one-third -- were low-income. The 2020 presidential elections saw the highest voter turnout in U.S. election history, including among low-income voters.