Reverend Barber leads Poor People’s Campaign Kick-Off in ABQ, Aug 15.
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has emerged from more than a decade of work by grassroots community and religious leaders, organizations and movements fighting to end systemic racism, poverty, militarism, environmental destruction & related injustices and to build a just, sustainable and participatory society. Under the leadership of Rev Barber and a coalition of labor, faith, and political leaders, the Campaign aims to build a broad and deep national moral movement — rooted in the leadership of poor people and reflecting the great moral teachings — to unite our country from the bottom up. Their goal is to launch campaigns in 26 states in preparation for 40 days of nonviolent direct action beginning on Mothers’ Day 2018. We do not know the precise actions to be staged in NM, nor for that where anywhere in the US, however, the Reverend is obviously serious as at the end of the Dec. 4 kickoff press meeting, he led other leadership of the campaign on a march to the US Senate offices to demand a meeting with Senate leadership. While he noted, that they would likely not get that meeting, he promised that they would return every Monday between now and May 13 and on that day, they will not leave.
On August 15, Rev. Barber and his colleagues came to Albuquerque and a packed house with over 500 folks jammed Central Albuquerque Methodist Church. That day they collected almost 400 signatures of folks committed to the campaign. In September 2017, Retake Our Democracy leadership voted unanimously to endorse and organize in support of the Poor People’s Campaign. On Dec 3, Paul Gibson was asked to be one of the statewide coordinators for the Poor People’s Campaign, New Mexico and he created a Facebook page for this new organization. Click here to sign up for updates on the campaign. . Retake is interested in the views of our constituency as to how the fourth pillar, militarism, can have local and state policy implications. Below are excerpts from the Poor People’s Campaigns website. Click here for more.
The twin forces of white supremacy and unchecked corporate greed continue to gain more power and influence, both in statehouses across this nation and at the highest levels of our federal government. Today, one in every two Americans are poor or low-income while millions of children and adults continue to live without access to healthcare, housing, clean water, or good jobs.
At the same time, the issues of poverty and racism have been forced to the margins of our moral narrative and claims that a limited focus on personal morality should overshadow and supplant a commitment to public morality rooted in a critique of greed, racism, and injustice.
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will strategically connect and grow different struggles and lift up and deepen the leadership of those most affected to transform the political, economic and moral structures of our society. The Campaign will push forward concrete demands, build unity across lines of division, and draw on art, music, and religious traditions to challenge the dominant narrative that blames poor people for poverty.
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will necessarily be a multi-year undertaking. The Summer of 2017 through the Spring of 2018 will be used as the public launching of the Campaign. By engaging in highly publicized civil disobedience and direct action over a 6-week period in at least 25 states and the District of Columbia during the Spring of 2018, the Campaign will force a serious national examination of the enmeshed evils of systemic racism, poverty, militarism and environmental devastation during a key election year while strengthening and connecting informed and committed grassroots leadership in every state, increasing their power to continue this fight long after June 2018. The two-minute video below describes the new PPC.
Join us in the Poor People’s Campaign, Santa Fe.