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Poor People’s Campaign Begins With Rallies & Mass Arrests Across The Country

  • By Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance

Above: Kick off of the Poor People’s Campaign May 14, 2018. From the Poor People’s Campaign.

The Poor People’s Campaign kicked off 40 days of civil resistance calling for a new economy where workers have a wage “commensurate for the 21st-century economy,” everyone has healthcare through a single payer system, homelessness is ended and war and militarism no longer dominate the economy.

Today’s Poor People’s Campaign comes 50 years after the campaign Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was doing when he was assassinated. Today’s Campaign officially launched on Monday with advocates for economic justice rallying in Washington, D.C. and more than 30 state capitols nationwide. Hundreds were arrested in Washington, DC alone.

Rev. William Barber called for a “moral confrontation” stressing that 140 million people live in poverty in the U.S.—one of the world’s wealthiest countries—and the abandonment of American workers indicates a profound moral failing of the government. On poverty, he added, “250,000 people are dying every year from poverty and low wealth.”

On Democracy Now Barber said a moral confrontation was needed as “It is immoral to have 37 million people without healthcare, it is immoral not to pay living wages when we know we can do it…Our first goal is to break through the moral narrative to where we’re talking about it. We’re not even talking about these issues in the country.”

The 40 days of nonviolent direct action building to a final mass protest in Washinton, DC on June 23 was described  by Barber as the launch of a “multi-year campaign.”

People shared their experience of the kick-off the campaign on social media.

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