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Poor People’s Campaign

Poor People’s Campaign Gears Up For Mother’s Day Launch

April 13, 2018 By Sarah Anderson, Inequality.org , ,
I am not speaking about the poor. I am not speaking for the poor. I am the poor.” Claudia De la Cruz was speaking at an April 10 press briefing in Washington, D.C. on behalf of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. Inspired by a similar 1968 initiative led by Dr. Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders, the campaign aims to lift up the voices of people like De la Cruz who’ve been most affected by our country’s persistent poverty. A descendant of immigrants from the Dominican Republic, De la Cruz was born in the South Bronx, the poorest Congressional district in the country. Median household income there is about $26,000, compared to $116,000 for the wealthiest district, which straddles Virginia’s northern suburbs. She’s a member of the national steering committee of the Poor People’s Campaign and one of the state organizers for the New York City area.

The Souls Of Poor Folk

April 12, 2018 Staff, Ips-dc.org ,
The Souls of Poor Folk is an assessment of the conditions today and trends of the past 50 years in the United States. In 1967 and 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., alongside a multiracial coalition of grassroots leaders, religious leaders, and other public figures, began organizing with poor and marginalized communities across racial and geographic divides. Together, they aimed to confront the underlying structures that perpetuated misery in their midst. The move towards a Poor People’s Campaign was a challenge to the national morality: it was a movement to expose the injustice of the economic, political, and social systems in the U.S. during their time. 50 years later, The Souls of Poor Folk challenges us to take a look at how these conditions have changed since 1968.

A Moral Agenda Based On Fundamental Rights

April 11, 2018 Staff, Poorpeoplescampaign.org ,
Since 2010, 23 states have passed racist voter suppression laws, including racist gerrymandering and redistricting, laws that make it harder to register, reduced early voting days and hours, purging voter rolls, and more restrictive voter ID laws. Following the Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court case, which gutted key provisions of the Voting Rights Act, by 2016 14 states had new voting restrictions in place before the Presidential election and there were 868 fewer polling places. There are also 6.1 million people who have been disenfranchised due to felony convictions, including one in 13 Black adults. While these laws have disproportionately targeted Black people, in 2016, at least 17 states saw voter suppression cases targeting American Indian and Alaskan Native voters. Thirteen states that passed voter suppression laws also opted not to accept expanded Medicaid benefits offered under the Affordable Care Act.

50 Years Later, The Poor People’s Campaign Continues

April 9, 2018 Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese, Clearing the FOG. , , ,
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Poor People's Campaign, called for by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Although Dr. King was murdered a month prior to the Poor People's Campaign, it happened anyway. Resurrection City was built on the Mall in Washington, DC and people stayed there for six weeks. Fifty years later, widespread poverty exists and the "evils" of racism, capitalism and militarism are still in crisis. Two major campaigns are organizing poor people across the country.

Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr. And Why?

April 2, 2018 William Pepper, Ratical.org , , ,
This year is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His death came at the time when he was speaking out against the Vietnam War and poverty while continue to speak about racism. His death was one year to the day of his speech Beyond Vietnam; Time To Break The Silence, which laid out the triple evils that still plague us, war, racism and capitalism. It is also came when he was planning the Poor People's Campaign, a march on Washington, DC which had elites in government very nervous. While the official story that a lone gunman, James Earl Ray, was his assassin there are tens of millions who do not accept the story and ask who killed Martin Luther King, Jr. and why. One person who spent more than two decades seeking answers to those questions was his friend, colleague and lawyer William Pepper below is a speech he gave answering those questions.

Resurrection City Participant Considers Current Poor People’s Campaign

February 23, 2018 George Pauk, Popular Resistance , , ,
My deeply moving experience was to see the Washington Mall filled with African-American and other activists living in poverty conditions. They were on the ground in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln. The cold rains and action turned the ground into deep mud. My memory is strong of the mud and walking on planks to the makeshift and somewhat dismal clinic. Now, many years later, the Poor Peoples Campaign is being resurrected. Another attempt is flinging itself at the government, the churches, and the entire American society -- still divided by class. Poverty has largely become normalized in America. The minds of most have become inured to inadequate food, housing and health care for millions of us. We certainly must have not only a national call, but also national change -- to be morally revived and eliminate systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and ecological devastation.

Poor People’s Campaign: City Of Hope

February 9, 2018 Liam Farrell, TERP. , , ,
The pilgrim protesters poured into Washington, D.C., from the farms of the South, the cities of the North, the mountains of Appalachia and the deserts of the West. Carrying hammers, nails and pieces of plywood, America’s poor and forgotten met in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial 50 years ago this spring to build a new monument, albeit a temporary one. Their shantytown, called Resurrection City, was meant to honor the final vision of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., assassinated just weeks earlier in Memphis, and to refocus the country’s conscience onto the plight of its most destitute.

Poor People To March On Washington DC June 2

February 8, 2018 Cheri Honkala, Popular Resistance. , ,
On June 2 in Philadelphia PA from the poorest District in Pennsylvania, Kensington, poor families will gather from across the entire country  in the largest poor people’s march to Washington DC in the March for Our Lives. Kensington is home to the highest death rate of ANY major U.S. city. In 2016, 64,000 Americans died from opioids - more than in the entire Vietnam War (55,000). In Philadelphia, there were 1,200 overdose deaths last year due to mostly opioids. It has quadrupled the murder rate.

#PoorPeoplesCampaign Kicks Off 40 Days Of ‘Moral Action’

February 6, 2018 By Jessica Corbett, Commondreams.org ,
In Washington, D.C. and more than two dozen states across the country on Monday, supporters of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival gathered to kick off 40 days of "moral action" to highlight "the human impact of policies which promote systemic racism, poverty, the war economy, and environmental devastation." Led by co-chairs Rev. Dr. William J. Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis—and inspired by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s original Poor People's Campaign in the late 1960s—the campaign, which was announced last year, livestreamed a press conference from D.C. and delivered to lawmakers a letter outlining their demands for policy changes.

Workers Plan Massive Wave Of Civil Disobedience This Spring

February 4, 2018 Staff for Fight for $15, Popular Resistance , , ,
Thousands of fast-food cooks and cashiers announced Thursday they will walk off their jobs and protest nationwide Feb. 12 – the 50th anniversary of the historic Memphis sanitation strike - carrying on the fight for higher wages and union rights led by hundreds of black municipal workers whose 1968 walkout became a rallying cry of the Poor People’s Campaign led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Workers in the Fight for $15 declared they will participate in six weeks of direct action and nonviolent civil disobedience beginning Mother’s Day as part of the new Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, uniting two of the nation’s most powerful social movements in a common fight for strong unions to lift people of all races out of poverty.

Widespread Protests To Tax Bill, Backlash Brewing

December 10, 2017 Sarah Anderson, inequality.org , ,
The tax reform moral abomination is already igniting a firestorm across the country. Over the past two weeks, protests have erupted at 50 universities and in least 100 cities, while nearly 50 people have been arrested on Capitol Hill. And whether or not President Trump achieves his goal of signing this tax deal into law by the end of the year, this fight is just beginning. On December 4, prominent faith leaders announced plans for one of the largest waves of civil disobedience in U.S. history. Dubbed the “Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival,” this effort will mark the 50th anniversary of a similar initiative in 1968 that was undercut by the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.
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