Poor Peoples Campaign and March to the Polls

 

Poor Peoples Campaign begins its Nation Campaign

 Coming to Sacramento March 2. 

This morning at 10:00 am ET/7:00 am PT, the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will hold a national press conference in Washington D.C, launching 40 Weeks of Massive Voter Mobilization across the United States. PPC Campaign Co-Chairs Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis together with poor and low-wage workers, faith leaders, and movement leaders from over 30 states will announce major plans for engaging millions of poor and low-wage voters ahead of the 2024 general election.    Join us online to demand an end to poverty as the 4th leading cause of death in this country, a living wage, full voting rights, healthcare for all, and the unity of love over the division of hate!   Then join us in the streets on March 2nd, 2024 at 11am local time for our Mass Poor People's and Low-Wage Workers' Moral March to State House Assemblies to bring our demands to our statehouses and call our state legislatures to the task of building a Third Reconstruction!

WATCH THE LIVESTREAM

Sacramento: MLK March

 

 

Sacramento: The 42^nd Annual “March for the Dream" Walk will take place on MLK Jr. Day, Monday, Jan. 15. Registration is free—no charge to participate! Free transportation back to City College is available if you cannot walk the entire route. Visit the MLK Walk website to learn more and register. 

California Poor People's Campaign.,

Upcoming meetings

We’re going to Sacramento! Mobilization meeting  Saturday Jan. 20, 12pm | RSVP SEIU 721 building (1545 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles) Los Angeles is getting organized to go to Sacramento on March 2 as part of a national day of action that will take place in 30 states. We are calling for all hands on deck to organize this effort collectively—help with outreach, transportation, media and more is needed. Our March 2 actions will call politicians to account for allowing policies of violence to continue. We will demand they stop making concessions for the wealthy while leaving families and children to die in poverty.   Lunch and English/Spanish interpretation will be provided. Don’t forget to fill out this formand let us know you’ll be there.   Statewide organizing meetings Wednesdays, 6:30pm | RSVP Help us organize for the March 2 rally in Sacramento and other 2024 efforts. You’ll meet activists from around the state and take part in mobilizing our communities for these historic actions. It’s a place to lend a hand and to learn from one another. Drop in any Wednesday.

Poverty and the Moral Majority

 Moral Poverty Action Congress is underway, and California is in the house!

The PPC’s Moral Poverty Action Congress kicked off this past Monday. This gathering—the convergence on the nation’s capital of PPC groups from dozens of states, ours included—is a crucial opportunity for us to build on our work, raise our voices, strategize for the coming year, and meet with lawmakers, ensuring that the voices of poor and low-wealth individuals are well-represented in the upcoming election and beyond. 

 

Here are just a few highlights:

• On Monday, Bishop Barber helmed a discussion with economists and public health policy practitioners on poverty; you’ll find a recap of that event below.
• The next day, PPC activists visited more than 400 legislative offices. Our state’s delegates visited all 52 California congresspeople and two senators.
• Bishop Barber and PPC activists raised their voices in front of the Supreme Court. Several shared personal stories of struggles with low wages and lack of health insurance and mourned loved ones lost to poverty. 
• Congresspeople Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and Barbara Lee (D-CA) participated in a press conference on the reintroduction of the Third Reconstruction Resolution. At least 11 more reps were in attendance, including Ro Khanna, who represents a swath of the South and East Bay.

Meanwhile, a timely Religion News op-ed by Bishop Barber and Rev. Theoharis lays bare the violence that poverty inflicts on millions. It opens with the tragic story of Bertha Montes from Los Angeles, who died after being denied a request for help at her job at McDonald’s and was forced to work while she was sick. The piece outlines the extensive evidence of policy harm and the mission of the Moral Poverty Action Congress.

 

We’ve been posting about the Congress on the CA PPC Facebook page, and you can check the national PPC website for updates and replays.

 

Finally, let’s not forget that the Congress is also a vital step toward our 2024 campaign, which will include actions at statehouses nationwide, our nonpartisan Get Out the Vote effort and the third Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls.

Poverty Action:

 

Four days away… The Moral Poverty Action Congress begins on Monday in Washington D.C., and California will be in the house! The Congress is a vital step toward our 2024 campaign, which will include actions at statehouses nationwide, our nonpartisan Get Out the Vote effort and the third Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls. It provides a crucial opportunity for us to build on our work and strategize for the coming year, ensuring that the voices of poor and low-wealth individuals are well-represented in the upcoming election and beyond.   We’ll be posting about the Congress on the CA PPC Facebook page, and you can check the national PPC website for updates and livestreams. There’s still time to make a donation toward this event. Every dollar helps!

Poor People's Campaign,

 

Poor People's Campaign. Sat.

 

Join Sacramento rally for National Day of Action Saturday Oct. 15, 10am (gather), 11am (march) Crocker Park: 211 O St., Sacramento CA 95814 Sacramento is the California site for the PPC National Day of Action, when we’ll bring our demands to Main Streets all across the nation. This is a key component of our midterm election campaign to mobilize poor and low-income people and low-wage workers to the polls. Voting rights are on the ballot. Living wages are on the ballot. Reproductive justice is on the ballot. Healthcare is on the ballot. Our climate is on the ballot. On October 15, we'll make them hear us coast to coast! (Photo above by David Solnit.) Let us know if you can be with us for this historic march. We also need volunteers to help organize. Contact us if you can come or lend a hand. Brother Carter: kcwethepeople@gmail.com Steven Payán 530payan@gmail.com

PPC- Call to Action

 

Call to Action: A Movement Declaration to Reconstruct American Democracy At the June 18 Moral Assembly, the Poor People’s Campaign announced its new campaign: 7 Steps Before the Midterms. The steps are enumerated in a new document titled A Movement Declaration to Reconstruct American Democracy, whose preamble points out the importance of this year’s midterm elections, when 469 seats in Congress will be in play. At the same time, the preamble notes, “our democracy is threatened by a state-by-state coordinated assault on the right to vote and imperiled by open violence, greed, obstruction, distortions and denial, while more than 140 million poor and low-wealth people of every race, creed, religion, in every region of this country are rising up daily against growing indignities, pain, injury and death at the hands of immoral policies and interlocking injustices.”   But rather than being obstacles, these facts drive us forward. “Our votes are not supports but demands to be heard and to take action. A movement that votes does not vote for any party or any one person, we vote for our people and for our lives. We vote to summon a Third Reconstruction that can birth us out of an impoverished democracy and usher in a new world.”   Here is a summary of the seven steps: We demand that every member of Congress publicly acknowledge the reality and pain of 140 million poor and low wealth people. We demand every member of Congress commit to creating and supporting legislation that reflects the Third Reconstruction Agenda developed by poor and low-wage communities. We demand a White House Poverty Summit with President Biden to allow this administration to meet with a delegation of poor and low-wealth people, religious leaders and economists and to commit to an Executive Action Plan to Eliminate Poverty in 2022. We declare that this Campaign will engage in massive mobilization and outreach through every means available to us—by visits, letters, petitions, candidate forums, and phone calls—advocating for our current representatives to take action now to address the needs of 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this country. We pledge to return to Washington D.C. in September 2022, to join 5,000 poor and low-wealth people and religious leaders, along with 100 economists, in nonviolent moral direct action in our next step of declaration and notification of these demands. This Campaign announces its launch of a nationwide effort to register and educate poor and low-income communities to vote in every election for candidates who commit to a Third Reconstruction Agenda to address poverty and low wealth from the bottom up. We declare that we are a movement that votes. We call on all poor and low-wealth people to march in mass assembly from here to the polls this November and to use your vote to make your voices heard!

antiracismdsa: Poor People's Campaign- March on Washington

antiracismdsa: Poor People's Campaign- March on Washington:   ‘We Won’t Be Silent or Unseen Anymore’: Poor People’s Campaign To Lead DC Assembly Jessica Corbett  June 17, 2022 Common Dreams Bishop Wil...

Poor People's Campaign Plans March on Joe Manchin

 June 7, 2021

By 

Jack Jenkins

WASHINGTON (RNS) — The faith-led Poor People’s Campaign is planning a march in the home state of West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin to protest the moderate Democrat’s recent decision to oppose voting rights legislation and efforts to end the Senate filibuster.

Poor People’s Campaign co-chair the Rev. William Barber announcedvia Twitter on Monday (June 7) that his group will stage a “Moral March on Manchin” next week. The march is in addition to a separate protest against Manchin and Kentucky Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell scheduled to take place in Washington, D.C., later this month.

In an interview with Religion News Service, Barber said plans for the march came about at the request of activists in the state outraged by Manchin’s recent policy positions, which the pastor argued “hurt poor and low-wealth people.”

“They said it’s time to march on his office,” Barber said. “It’s time for people of all differences to stand together against him — we call it ‘from the hollers in the mountains to the hood.’”

The march is in reaction to an editorial Manchin published over the weekend in The Charleston Gazette-Mail. Although Manchin expressed support for a bill known as the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, he stated in the editorial he would vote against the For the People Act, a sweeping voting rights bill that passed the U.S. House of Representatives in March and enjoys support from prominent Democrats such as Senate Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Sen. Rev. Raphael Warnock of Georgia.

Warnock is among those who have expressed openness to eliminating the Senate filibuster to pass the bill, which would allow it to make it through the Senate with a simple 51-vote majority instead of the current requirement for a 60-vote supermajority. Similarly, the Poor People’s Campaign has decried the filibuster, which is seen by some activists as hamstringing efforts to pass an array of liberal-leaning bills.

But Manchin shot down hopes he would back such efforts in his editorial, describing the For the People Act as “partisan” and declaring he “will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster.”

Sen. Joe Manchin, left, and the Rev. William Barber. (Left, AP Photo/Patrick Semansky. Right, RNS Photo/Jack Jenkins)

Barber blasted the positions of Manchin, a Catholic, as incongruous with Christianity. 

“He claims to be a religious person, but the Scripture tells us in Matthew 23: ‘Woe unto those who tithe — who go through all the procedures — but leave undone weightier matters of the law, which is justice,'” he said.

Manchin’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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RELATED: Poor People’s Campaign, lawmakers unveil sweeping resolution to tackle poverty

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Barber noted representatives from the Poor People’s Campaign met with Manchin earlier this year to discuss, among other things, support for a $15 federal minimum wage (Manchin instead floated a lower figure). The meeting — which was requested by Manchin’s office after Barber’s group threatened demonstrations — included residents of West Virginia, one of several states where the Poor People’s Campaign regularly stages protests.

“We explained to (Manchin) why his defense of the filibuster was historically inaccurate and politically dangerous, and how his position against living wages was hurting over half of the workforce of West Virginia,” Barber said. He noted they also discussed how Manchin’s refusal to support the For the People Act “was hurting not just Black people, but white people, brown people and particularly poor and low-wealth people.”

Barber added: “Even if (Manchin) doesn’t change, we have to bear witness to how his policies are hurting the democracy, are a form of political and legislative violence, and that he is standing more on the side of the corporate lobbyists rather than poor and low-wealth workers and people across this country.”

Details of next week’s protest, scheduled for June 14, are still in flux. Although announced as a march, Barber said organizers are discussing the use of “other non-violent direct action.”

“Thousands upon thousands of people (in West Virginia) don’t agree with his economic position, or his position on voting rights, or his position on the filibuster — and it’s time for them to speak up,” Barber said.

Rev. William Barber on Protests and Riots

Only if the screams and tears and protests shake the very conscience of this nation can we hope for a better society on the other side of this

The systemic racism that killed George Floyd has taken untold souls from us for over 400 years.’, Christian Monterrosa/AP

Nproo one wants to see their community burn. But the fires burning in Minneapolis, just like the fire burning in the spirits of so many marginalized Americans today, are a natural response to the trauma black communities have experienced, generation after generation. No one wants the fires – even activists on the ground have said this. But they have also shared how their non-violent pleas and protests have gone unnoticed for years as the situation has gotten out of hand. No one knows who and what is behind the violence, but we do know that countless activists, grassroots leaders and preachers were screaming non-violently long before now: “Change, America! Change, Minneapolis!” Rather than listen, many of those in power saw even their non-violent protest as an unwelcome development. This is so often the case because many Americans struggle to imagine that our government’s policies and its long train of abuses demand radical transformation. Too many want to believe racism is merely caused by a few bad actors. We often turn racism into a spectacle, only considering the cruel legacy of racism when an egregious action escalates outrage to this level.  Black Americans have rarely been able to sustain such illusions. Deadly racism is always with us, and not only through police brutality. In the midst of the current pandemic we are painfully aware that our families bear a disproportionate burden of Covid-19 deaths. In some cities where racial data is available, we know that black people are six times as likely to die from the virus as their white counterparts. Even before Covid, large numbers of black Americans died because of the racial disparities in healthcare, which are systemic and not unintentional. African Americans are three times more likely to die from particulate air pollution than our fellow Americans. The percentage of black children suffering from asthma is nearly double that of white people, and the death rate is 10 times higher. This is but a reflection of the fissures of inequality that run through every institution in our public life, where the black wealth gap, education gap and healthcare gap have persisted despite the civil rights movement, legal desegregation and symbolic affirmative action. We understand that the same mentality that will accept and defend the violence of armed officers against unarmed black people will also send black, brown and poor people into harm’s way during a pandemic in the name of “liberty” and “the economy”.  Many have cited Dr King to remind Americans that a riot is the language of the unheard. But I have been reflecting on the eulogy he offered when another man – a white man who came to Selma, Alabama, to work for voting rights – was brutally murdered by racist violence in 1965. At the funeral for James Reed, Dr King said it is not enough to ask who killed the victim in a case like the murder of George Floyd. Weak and unacceptable charges have been brought against the officer whose knee choked George Floyd, staying on his neck for three minutes after he went unconscious, but no charges have been filed against the other officers who stood by and watched. Even still, dealing with who did the killing is not all that justice demands. Dr King said the question is not only who killed him, but also what killed him?  Those of us who have faced the lethal force of systemic racism have also learned something else in the American story. We can be wounded healers The systemic racism that killed George Floyd has taken untold souls from us for over 400 years. And it is killing the very possibility of American democracy today. I join those screaming that this is all screwed up, and it’s been screwed up far too long. But we are not screwed as long we have the consciousness and humanity to know what is right and wrong. Those of us who have faced the lethal force of systemic racism have also learned something else in the American story. We can be wounded healers. We don’t have to be arbitrarily destructive. We can be determined to never accept the destruction of our bodies and dreams by any police, person or policy. We have learned that there is a force more powerful. When hands that once picked cotton have joined together with white hands and Native hands, brown hands and Asian hands, we have been able to fundamentally reconstruct this democracy. Slavery was abolished. Women did gain the right to vote. Labor did win a 40-hour work week and a minimum wage. The civil rights movement in the face of lynching and shooting did expand voting rights to African Americans.  If we take time to listen to this nation’s wounds, they tell us where to look for hope. The hope is in the mourning and the screams, which make us want to rush from this place. There is a sense in which right now we must refuse to be comforted too quickly. Only if these screams and tears and protests shake the very conscience of this nation –and until there is real political and judicial repentance – can we hope for a better society on the other side of this.  William J Barber II is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, which is mobilizing poor people and their allies for a mass assembly and march on Washington in June 2020

March With Poor People's Campaign

MARCH WITH THE POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN

AT THE MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY MARCH

IN SACRAMENTO 

Join Us!

Monday January 20, 2020 

7:30 AM Leaving 

Oak Park Community Center

Martin Luther King Blvd And Eighth Ave

At 8:00 AM

Bring Your Banners

Bring Your Flyers

Build Your Organization

March Against Poverty, Environmental Devastation, War

and Institutional Racism and Reawaken Dr. Martin Luther King’s Poor People’s Campaign

The March will start at the Oak Park Community Center and Join Other Marchers at the Sacramento City College at 9:15 AM

Program and Tabling at Sac City College

Poor People's Campaign. Live. Now ! Washington.

As you read this, thousands of us from California to the Carolinas are gathered on the National Mall, preparing to march on the U.S. Capitol to deliver letters to Congress demanding an immediate end to the policy violence that hurts poor children and families of every color and creed. 

We are faith leaders of numerous religious affiliations, advocates and poor and disenfranchised people who are directly affected by the policies being pushed by the Trump administration and Congress. 

We are the “new and unsettling force” that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King called for in starting the Poor People’s Campaign along with so many others 50 years ago.

And people are watching us. 

We have a our own livestream for supporters like you who’ve been with us from the start. Tune in to the action right now!

This campaign isn’t just on the ground. Even from home, you can take part in the event by amplifying it on Facebook and Twitter.

Click the graphic below to share a Facebook post linking to our livestream. And get the word out on Twitter with the hashtag #poorpeoplescampaign. 

This is the moment we’ve been building toward, the start of a new phase in our movement to organize and build power to end policy violence against the poor once and for all. Don’t miss your chance to be part of it.

Sincerely,

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

Seizing Children at the Border is State Terrorism

Duane Campbell, Photo be Leisa Falkner

Thank you for being here today.  This is a critical day in our efforts. 

My Name is Duane Campbell.  I am a co-chair of the Immigrants’ Rights Committee of Democratic Socialists  of America.

Let us be clear. 

Seizing children from their parents at the border is immoral. 

This issue before us is  one of human decency.  Under the Trump Administration ICE has developed a new policy of deliberately separating families of immigrants and refugees.  They are separating parents from their children as a form of collective punishment.   They are violating both  due process and human rights.

 Many of us have seen the photos and the video.  We are here to disrupt the Immoral narrative  that terrorizes children for political gain. 

The United Nation says so.

The U.S. Catholic Bishops say so.

Most religious communities say so. 

 Trump, and Republicans in Congress have rejected a way to fix DACA and protect Dreamers. Now they are forcing a vote on two cruel bills that hold dreamers hostage to the Trump Administration’s deportation machine .

This is state  terrorism.  

I have a 3 year old grandson.  I can only imagine the terror that these children are feeling.  Without their parents, in a strange place.

This is not who we are as a country.

There have been other times and places where this policy was practiced. 

 The Nazis did this in Germany in the 1930’s.  One of their victims was a Protestant Minister. He survived Auschwitz.

Opinion | Seizing Children From Parents at the Border Is Immoral. Here’s What We Can Do About It. - The New York Times

Opinion | Seizing Children From Parents at the Border Is Immoral. Heres What We Can Do About It. - The New York Times

Join the Poor People's March on Monday, July 18.  North Steps. California Capitol.
12:30 PM.

Poor People's Campaign - Sacramento

Vince Villegas - Progressive Alliance

by Duane Campbell

Hundreds of tenants, low-wage workers, clergy, union members and community activists descended upon the California state capitol today in a show of collective power to demand that state lawmakers take action to address the state’s homelessness crisis and to combat the systemic racism and poverty in our communities.

Working families traveled from San Diego, Los Angeles, Salinas, and the Bay Area to join in this fifth successive week of nonviolent direct action. 

Speakers and participants included union workers protesting the attack on workers rights and their unions.  Anti-worker attacks – like Janus V AFSCME -  would create so called ‘Right to Work’ status for government workers in California and around the nation.  

DSA Members at PPC 

“ The greedy rich and the corporations backing Janus are coming after us because they know about our power in numbers, and they know what we can accomplish when we stand together,” said David Dunbar a SEIU Local 721 member from Los Angeles. 

As the rally concluded, hundreds entered the capitol building to take their message directly to the lawmakers and to bear witness to their crisis when communities are torn apart by homelessness, poverty wages, systemic racism, and corporate greed. 

Poor People's Campaign Comes to Sacramento

‘Our People Are Being Hurt and We Won’t be Silent Anymore’

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CaliforniaPoor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival To Kick Off Six Weeks of Non-Violent Direct Action Monday in Sacramento

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Protests Planned in over 30 State Capitals, Washington, D.C.

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Movement Demands Sweeping Overhaul of Nation’s Voting Rights Laws, Policies to Address Poverty, Ecological Devastation, War Economy

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA—The CaliforniaPoor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will kick off a six-week season of nonviolent direct action Monday in Sacramento.  The Campaign is demanding a massive overhaul of the nation’s voting rights laws, new programs to lift up the 140 million Americans living in poverty, immediate attention to ecological devastation and measures to curb militarism and the war economy. 

The Monday rally in California is one of over 30 actions across the country by poor and disenfranchised people, clergy and advocates who will engage in 40 days of nonviolent direct action and voter mobilization, among other activities. As a movement, we aim at transforming the nation’s political, economic and moral structures by building on the work of the original Poor People’s Campaign 50 years ago. 

To emphasize the urgent necessity for action,hundreds of participants are joining ‘Freedom Trains’,in solidarity with their 1968 counter parts. These caravans will be launching from  Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco. To Commemorate the daily hardships that Women  endure, these caravans will embark on Mother’s Day, May 13th, to join forces in Sacramento to focus on the first week’s theme: Somebody’s Hurting Our People: Women, Youth, Disabled, Children in Poverty and Right to Education.