#poor peoples campaign

[kp777]

By Brett Wilkins

Common Dreams

Feb. 5, 2024

"Forty-seven percent of the voters are poor or low-wage," said one activist. "Getting that vote in is very important."

The Poor People's Campaign on Monday launched a 42-week nationwide mobilization of poor and low-income Americans to "wake the sleeping giant" of a voting bloc with the potential to determine the outcome of the 2024 elections.

"It is time for a resurrection and not an insurrection," Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. William Barber II said during a press conference in Washington, D.C. "We must engage poor and low-wealth people to change the political landscape."

"For far too long extremists have blamed poor people and low-wage people for their plight, while moderates too often have ignored poor people, appealing instead to the so-called middle class," he continued. "Meanwhile, poor and low-income people have become nearly half of this country and we are here today to make one thing clear: Poor and low-wage brothers and sisters have the power to determine and decide the 2024 elections and elections beyond."

"Economic justice and saving this democracy are deeply connected."

Poor People's Campaign co-chair Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis stressed that "economic justice and saving this democracy are deeply connected."

"In this rich nation that has the wherewithal to end poverty tomorrow where there's the political will, we must not overlook the voices and votes of poor and low-income people," she added. "We are mobilizing and organizing, registering and educating people for a movement that votes... for healthcare and debt cancellation. Votes for living wages and strong anti-poverty programs. Votes for fair taxes and demilitarization of our communities and our world. Votes for immigrant rights and more."

Democratic pollster Celinda Lake said at the press conference: "In 2024, the election is going to be about mobilization... Democrats have an enthusiasm gap today and the progressive alliance and Democrats have fissures within their constituencies that make getting out the vote even more important."

"The biggest bloc of potential voters by far is low-income, low-wage voters," Lake noted. "Where the margin of victory is projected to be less than 3% in 2024, 30-45% of the voters are low-wage voters or low-income families... The turnout among low-wage voters and low-income voters today is... 20-22% below the average turnout. This is a huge bloc of voters, and it is a bloc of voters that votes 58-60%—at minimum—progressive, no matter how conservative the state."

"You're talking about a huge number—a game-changing number—of voters," she added.

The campaign's main scheduled events are a Mass Poor People's & Low-Wage Workers' Moral March to State House Assemblies on March 2 and a rally and march in Washington, D.C. on June 15.

"I have been struggling to pay my bills since I've been working at 16 years old. I work full time, 64 hours a week, seven days a week," said Beth Schafer of Raise Up for $15 during a video promoting the new campaign. "I am exhausted."

Crow Roberts, an organizer with the Indiana Poor People's Campaign, said in the video that "our government finds it necessary to ban abortion to say that they are saving our children, but more children die as a result of poverty in this country."

Guadalupe de la Cruz of the Florida Poor People's Campaign asserted that "we should not be cornered and forced to choose between one necessity or another."

Speaking at the press conference, Alabama activist Linda Burns said that "for three years I worked the assembly line at Amazon in Bessemer, Alabama. The work was grueling. We were expected to work like robots, moving like 1,000 pieces per hour."

"I got badly injured. My left arm," she continued. "I had two surgeries. I had to get a third surgery, but I didn't have no more insurance. Amazon, they cut my insurance off a year after. They let me go last October."

"Amazon let me go because I was helping organize the union," said Burns. "We didn't get the union in Alabama but I'm gonna do everything in my power to stand in solidarity. Organizing the union showed me just how many people were in the same situation I was. Not just in Alabama, but all over the world."

"Forty-seven percent of the voters are poor or low-wage. Getting that vote in is very important," she added. "We cannot settle for less, we've got to stand up for our rights. We are forward together—not one step back."

#poor peoples campaign #democracy #2024 elections #william barber #liz theoharis #poverty

[historybizarre]

The Poor People's Campaign marked an important transition in U.S. history. While drawing attention to poverty, the campaign also helped set the stage for future social justice movements. Additionally, as a multiethnic crusade, the voices of America's poor were heard, and the crisis of poverty in America became visible.

Hunger in America (Youtube), which aired in May 1968 on CBS, brought poverty and hunger into American homes. The program focused on poverty in four regions of the country: a Latino community in Texas; a white community in Virginia; a Native American reservation in Arizona; and an African American community in Alabama. The documentary’s portrayal of poverty’s effect on children moved Americans to write their representatives and demand the government provide assistance.

Learn more about Dr. King's role in the Poor People's Campaign.

#history #mlk #dr martin luther king jr #poor peoples campaign #1970s #1960s #blm

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Sharon Black

The United States has the largest economy in the world, yet it is slipping in every indice of quality of life. At last count, 37.2 million people were living in poverty, an increase of 3.3 million from 2020. All of this contrasts with the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Chinese government, which made eradicating poverty one of its major goals.

#poverty #capitalism #socialism #China #Poor Peoples Campaign #MLK #civil rights #protest #imperialism #racism #CPC #welfare rights #women #Struggle La Lucha #Sharon Black

[plethoraworldatlas]

Low-wage workers, faith leaders, and allies rallied in state capitals across the United States on Saturday as part of a mass mobilization of poor voters ahead of the pivotal 2024 election.

The nationwide demonstrations were organized by the Poor People's Campaign, a multiracial movement calling on state legislators and members of the U.S. Congress to act immediately to end the "crisis of death by poverty" in the richest country in the world. Research published last year found that poverty is the fourth-leading cause of death in the United States.

Thousands gathered and marched Saturday in 32 states—from Maine to Indiana to North Carolina—and Washington, D.C., carrying signs that read "abolish poverty" and "our votes are demands." In South Carolina and other states, activists placed mock coffins on the steps of state Capitol buildings as they demanded living wages, stronger workplace protections, and universal healthcare

#us politics #election 2024 #2024 presidential election #poor peoples campaign

[firstumcschenectady]

“Yet Always Rejoicing” based on Deuteronomy 15:1-11 and 2 Corinthians 6:1-10

This church has been described a church who loves to learn. Its true. We love knowledge around here. We love learning things. We especially love learning things that help us know how to build the kindom of God, but I think it is fair to say that most of us also believe knowing more will help in the long run, so we'll take learning for its own sake too.

We like knowing how things are. We like knowing how things could be. We like knowing how to get from here to there.

I am not an exception to this, I fit right in. Maybe I'm a little MORESO than average. And the desire to learn, and to know, and to consider are things I love about this church.

It also relates to some of our shared frustrations. Because we also want the world to value learning and knowledge, and to use knowledge for good, and generally to make things better, but we look around and that doesn't seem to happen. (Or at least not fast enough.) Worse, we look around and the values we share: love, justice, compassion, inclusion, and humility are also not shared in the world.

We look around and things are a mess and we lose hope. And I'm going to play with hope and faith for Lent, so hold on to that for a few weeks. But for now, I think maybe we need a reminder that we may love to learn, and we may be invested in building the kindom of God, but at exactly the same time, we are not God. And God is going to work for good no matter what – with us, through us, despite us, no matter what. If we know something useful, great! If we don't, God will find a way. If we find great partners, awesome. If not, God will find a way.

We end up being taught by the world that there isn't enough. Right? There aren't enough good jobs, so some people some people get ones that don't pay enough. There isn't enough good housing, so some people don't get it. There isn't enough... you name it and some people get the thing and some people don't.

But that's the way our society works, not the way God works. With God there is enough. There is enough love, everyone is loved. There is enough food, enough for everyone to be fed well. There is enough hope, enough to get us through. And, funny enough, there is enough MONEY for everyone to actually do OK. But the ways the world deals with debt and interest gets in the way.

Shifting from the world's scarcity model to God's abundance model is a hard thing to do! It takes constant awareness. It takes leaps of faith. It takes a community holding the truth of abundance together. And it takes God's willingness to give us strength and knowledge to keep moving towards the narrative of abundance.

One important piece of the narrative of abundance for me these days is the reminder that there are enough people working for the kindom, that I can trust God working through all of us and only be responsible for my little contributions. I've been thinking about Jesus saying “my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” It sounds a bit like “We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything. “ from our Pauline reading today.

God's abundance is there – including the abundance of rest and joy!!

So, I'm all for us continuing to be people who love to learn. We're good at it, it is needed, and it helps us work with God. And I'm for us continuing to listen to God's dreams, because they are amazing and because they inoculate us against the myths of scarcity. I'm for our work of justice and advocacy and our actions of compassion because they all build the kindom of God.

Part of our job, too, is to trust that if we do our part, God works with others to do theirs, and change happens. God plants seeds that can take years, decades, centuries to grow, but boy oh boy when they do! So let's make sure we are nurturing God's seeds in us and in our community, and hold on to the knowledge that with the God of abundance, all things are possible. Amen

#thinking church #progressive christianity #schenectady #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #Love to Learn #Church that Loves to Learn #poor peoples campaign #narrative takeover #reality of abundance #abundance #myth of scarcity #plenty of love for all

[elizabethkiem]

Moral revival is necessary to save the heart and soul of our democracy.

#poor peoples campaign

[negrolicity]

Rev. Dr. William Barber: Tens of millions of low wage voters will spark a "moral resurrection" | WBGO

Click and listen

#negrolicity #rev. william barber #poor peoples campaign

[az3422]

Poor people's campaign near the library and McDonald's in dc

#the resistance #poor peoples campaign

[progressivegraffiti]

Tomorrow, Saturday, June 18, 2022. Washington D.C. If you can’t make it, watch it live.

#poor peoples campaign #moral march on washington

[revlyncox]

Today we’re committing to a moral revival with the Poor People’s Campaign in New Jersey. Many thanks to Turning Point Methodist Church in Trenton for hosting. We demand a living wage, affordable housing, health care for all, environmental justice, and just immigration policy. Forward together, not one step back!

#Poor People’s Campaign #interfaith

[chromaticramblings]

if you feel guilty about something you love because it contributes to capitalism:

don’t.

capitalism needs you to be tired. it needs you to be so exhausted that you can barely think of anything outside of work, so that you can’t imagine how things could be better.

if you do things you love, you keep that energy for yourself. that’s energy you can turn outwards. that’s energy you can use to grow and help others and be human.

obviously we wanna harm reduce. obviously in an ideal world, that thing you love has zero negative impact. but you can’t work towards that world if you aren’t working on liberating yourself first.

#clearly there’s limits #like if your hobby is drilling for oil or exploiting poor people this post does not apply #but i find myself beating myself up for relatively the tiniest things #if i abstain from a takeout coffee i use one less plastic cup #but if i allow myself that coffee im in a better state of mind to campaign against plastic production #you feel me? #leftism #environmentalism #affirmation #activism #eco anxiety

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Baltimore Press Conference & Rally on Anniversary of Dr. King's Poor Peoples Campaign

Thursday, May 12 - 5:30 p.m.

City Hall, 100 Holliday Street, Baltimore

Hosted by Peoples Power Assembly

Join us for a special Press Conference & Rally to announce the Baltimore Poor People's Campaign Unity March & Caravan from Baltimore to D.C. and the National Welfare Rights Union Conference to be held in Baltimore this June!

Please join us and speak out on why you will be participating and supporting.

#Baltimore #protest #poverty #racism #class struggle #Poor Peoples Campaign #MLK #NWRU #PPA

[magicrainbowkitties]

Yo my friends at the Texas Poor People's Campaign are hosting a talk RIGHT NOW about Greg Abbott m and the bullshit he's doing at the border. Yes it's on Facebook, yes you can deal for an hour or 2. Watch it. Share it around. People need to know what's happening and how to help.

https://fb.watch/pXC1wXgux4/

#texas border #texas border crisis #greg abbott #fuck greg abbott #poor people's campaign #texas poor people's campaign #livestream #immigration #immigrants #illegal immigration

[firstumcschenectady]

“Yearning for Hope” based on Job 24:1-11, 22-25

Today we re-start the Christian Year, the liturgical cycle of waiting, celebrating, growing, waiting, celebrating, growing. We are now back in waiting. I think I fall deeper in love with Advent every year. The more commercialist Christmas pushes red and white, the more I find myself retreating the Advent colors of purple and pink. The more commercialism pushes secular carols, the more I find myself retreating into the quiet of the sanctuary and the integrity of Advent Hymns. The more commercialism pushes sales and deals the more attention I give to Alternative Christmas.

While secular Christmas has its bright, cheery, feel-good energy all around us, Christian Advent calls us to slow down, reflect, savor. Today we lit the candle of hope, one small light in an ever expanding darkness, one small light that will prove to be enough.

Now, I'm not against secular Christmas, I rather like it, but it feels disconnected from the one Christian one. This fall we did a Bible Study on the Christmas Stories in the Gospels, and we compared and contrasted them with our Christmas memories, our Christmas delights, and even the meaning we make from Christmas. (There is a poster in the back inviting you to do the same.) For most of us, Luke's story of Christmas fit our faith the best, and made the most sense of it all. We also discovered that reading Luke 1 and 2 together made Luke 2 a whole lot more delightful. Luke centers on women, and on the disenfranchised, and the good news to all people. It fits who we seek to be as a church.

But for now, we're still waiting, right? We're waiting, and the description of the world being terribly wrong from the Bible's most depressive abused character (Job) is doing its job of settling us into waiting. The description Job offers is of the world as it is and we YEARN with all our beings for the KINDOM of God where those descriptions no longer apply.

This Christian Year, the Worship Committee has taken seriously a request from the Intersectional Justice Committee to focus together on the book “We Cry Justice” put out by the Poor People's Campaign. It is a book in 52 parts, meant to be read devotionally, and no matter how many times our Book Club tried, it didn't become a readable book. It is a devotional book, so they asked if we could incorporate it into worship, and Worship Committee and I thought that was a wonderful idea. We have completed our year with “A Women's Lectionary for the Whole Church,” which was a gift from God via Dr. Wil Gafney, and there is space for a different focus.

The Poor People's Campaign is a group of amazing activists who decided it was time to pick up the mantle from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr who was himself leading a Poor People's Campaign at the time of his death. We have been lightly involved with the modern campaign for years, and we have KNOWN that it is one of the ways God is at work in the world, and yet we haven't quite given it our attention, until now. The book “We Cry Justice” is intentional Biblical interpretation with an eye towards the injustices of the world towards people in poverty. When I wrote them asking for permission to use prayers and quotations in worship they got back to us immediately granting it!

So this year as we settle to wait, our waiting is really defined by our waiting for JUSTICE for the vulnerable and those living in poverty. This fits the life this church particularly well, when I think about what we focus on in mission, while it hasn't even been a decision exactly, the goals seem to be to lighten the burdens of those living in poverty. We see in our neighbors, our fellow members and worshippers, those dear to us, and quite ourselves the struggles of trying to live in a world that values the creation of capital over the well-being of the vulnerable.

I don't know about you, but it breaks my heart.

Over and over again.

Actually, I kind of do know about you. I know that this is a community of faith whose belief in God and God's dreams for the world include knowing that what is just and right in the world is for people to have access to food that is nutritious, delicious and plentiful; to housing that is safe, mold-free, and affordable; and to healthcare that is caring, effective, and doesn't require declaring bankruptcy. That we are people who believe that God's desires in the world are for people to live full abundant lives, and we know what is impairing that.

I expect that what I just said was so ridiculously obvious that you don't know why I'm bothering wasting my breath on it. Thank you for that, because, dear ones, what is clear and obvious here isn't in the world at large. Our society as a whole is at peace with people being hungry or we would expand SNAP benefits to cover the WHOLE month, expand access to SNAP benefits to everyone who really needs it, and … oh, let's talk about reality, we wouldn't have had our federal government cut $22 million from funding for regional food banks that are the last-gap measure between those who are struggling and hunger. (THIS is why we have to go to the store for meat, because the Food Bank can't afford to get it anymore.) Our society as a whole is at peace with homelessness, or we'd prioritize safe, accessible housing in our budgets and our legislation. Our society as a whole is at peace with people not have access to healthcare, or not being able to afford to access healthcare, or going bankrupt from accessing healthcare or – wait for it – we'd have a different way of providing and funding healthcare.

And when I'm out in the world, listening, a shocking number of people think that those living in poverty should just try harder, or suffer a little because they deserve it, or …. well, basically the assumption is that poverty is the fault of the individual and poverty is the punishment someone deserves for not “succeeding” in capitalism.

Thank God, we see people as beloved children of God worthy of good things and abundant life, and not worthy of being punished because the game is rigged and they can't win.

Thank God we know a God who is defined by universal love, grace, and mercy. It turns out that matters a lot in what we think justice looks like.

So, here we are on this first Sunday of Advent with one candle-flicker of light in our sanctuary reminding us to hold on to hope. And we have that while we heard words from Job that tell us how the world really is. In “We Cry Justice” Aaron Scott reflects on this Job reading saying:

I see countless tents, tarps, and shacks lining freeway underpasses – up one day, then disappearing the next, removed by cities desperate to keep up appearances instead of keeping up with justice and mercy. I see signs turning parking lots and stoplights across the country into hostile territory: “No Loitering,” “No Illegal Shopping Carts, “No Panhandling.”

And last week while our social worker Sylvester worked to find housing for God's beloveds who had shown up last week, he confirmed counties in the capital region are buying people bus passes to other counties to avoid the cost of housing them.

The world as it is.

But, dear ones, we aren't waiting for more of the same. We are waiting for God's Kindom on earth. And this year, I have noticed something terribly obvious. We aren't just waiting with our ancestors in faith who also yearned for justice and God's dreams. I believe we are waiting with God's own self, God who yearns to see us make different choices and offer better care for God's vulnerable beloveds.

A challenge of faith today is to look at all the brokenness, all the injustice, all the heartaches, and hold hope. And yet, dear ones, there is plenty. There is hope because God seeks justice. There is hope because this is a community of faith that sees the injustice around us and calls it “immoral.” There is hope because there is a whole Poor People's Campaign out there working on it! There is hope because God and we, and others along with us, will never concede that this is good enough. There is hope because at the deepest core of reality, there is goodness (God's goodness) and it is going to break through eventually.

There is hope in this darkness. And the yearning for hope, the yearning for better, the yearning for the kindom is some of the hope itself. Thanks be to God. Amen

December 3, 2023

Rev. Sara E. Baron 

First United Methodist Church of Schenectady 

603 State St. Schenectady, NY 12305 

Pronouns: she/her/hers 

http://fumcschenectady.org/ 

https://www.facebook.com/FUMCSchenectady

#thinking church #progressive christianity #fumc schenectady #first umc schenectady #schenectady #umc #sorry about the umc #rev sara e baron #advent #hope #poor peoples campaign #Injustice #Justice #First Sunday of Advent

[silverislander]

being on the internet is so fun. i can come watch one of my childhood heroes make a whole twitter thread cyberbullying random women she's never met, putting anyone who says that's kind of mean on blast and then blaming them for the hate she sent their way via her hundreds of thousands of radicalized followers!

#like. jesus fucking christ #i dont expect better from her but its so fucking sad at its core. its just fucking pathetic #and thinking abt what her work meant to me and how much i loved it? and what it got me through? #i was reading these books to escape being bullied for seven years on end they quite literally kept me alive sometimes as silly as that is #yeah they sucked in a lot of ways i didnt pick up on but they were really important to me as a kid! #i would like to at least look back on birthday parties and road trips going 'well that wasnt perfect but i had fun and now ive learned' #rather than 'god i wish i had never heard of that' #and now shes. doing almost the exact same thing those people did to me on a larger scale. basically for a living #if she knew me shed probably call me the same shit they did back then. how sad is that #levi.txt #i genuinely want to know if she knows who anita bryant is. and if she can name anything specific anita did before campaigns #but then shed probably think of her as a fucking hero too. no sense of irony in her body #i just feel so fucking awful for the poor women shes calling out in those april fools posts. i hope theyre doing ok #i hope they can get away from the harassment somehow bc ive heard abt how intense it can be when it comes from her #and i hope they know theyre better women than shell ever be. its such a deeply mean spirited 'joke'

[personal-blog243]

I really think we need to use the “we should improve society somewhat” meme more often to some of these conservatives 🙄.

Lately I have seen a few reels on social media that are for some reason targeting younger, white, women who share their concerns about the cost of living crisis and their financial worries. It seems to be mostly conservatives who will make some comment like “lol I thought you had white privilege” without actually addressing poverty in minority communities. 🙄. Or they will revert to the old “bootstrapping” rhetoric or say they also struggled so it doesn’t matter. Some people will even make assumptions about the way she voted in the comments and say it’s poor people’s fault for voting wrong as if that’s a solution to systemic poverty 🙄. Even if the woman in the video didn’t say a word about politics.

I feel like people target these videos of the very few examples of young white women complaining because they are an easy target because they are statistically less likely to be poor, but it just ends up hurting other demographics of people that are even more impacted by wealth inequality.

#we should improve society somewhat #white chicks #white privilege #white woman’s instagram #basic white girl #cost of living #cost of living crisis #politcs #political #bootstrapping #poor people’s campaign #we are the 99 percent #leftism #leftist