Editor’s note: Below we resume our coverage of the celebration of the Welfare Rights movement’s 50th anniversary in the fight to eliminate poverty. It is fitting to note that August 22, 2016 marked the 20th anniversary of Bill Clinton’s signing of the welfare reform law that, as one speaker noted, “legalized the death of the emerging new class of unneeded workers; legally ending the right to survive. Now, decades later, the bankruptcy judge tells us, ‘you don’t have the constitutional right to water, even though you need it to live.’’
Below are more voices from the conference who are committed to carry the struggle forward:
“I want to speak of the reach of the National Welfare Rights movement, not only in this country but internationally. I’m from a little village in a little island that was a British colony for over 300 years, growing up with no running water, no electricity and one meal a day. The poverty of those of us in the global south . . . when you go to Haiti, Jamaica, Kingston, when you go to the backstreet of my father’s village, you will see what they have done to us, and what welfare rights has meant to people like me . . . it’s about reclaiming what was stolen from us, not only in this country, but in the global south and other parts of world. We intend to reclaim it and take every damn penny they have stolen from us. That’s the reach of welfare rights and I want to lift those women up.”
— Margaret Prescod, Radio producer, Women’s rights and global anti-poverty activist
“There is the possibility of an even more fascist America . . . we need to reach those young white kids. The most donations at the Sanders campaign averaged $27. These kids have been giving their life up to work for a socialist. Maybe not the same kind of socialist. But these young people know that by the time they graduate, they will owe more than what a home will cost. People who lost their jobs are losing their homes, and their retirement. We need to come together with those other people.” Karen Shaumann
Other speakers add:
“Tax foreclosure here was the largest tax foreclosure in the country: 100,000 homes. When they dismantelled the social net of welfare, a thousand heads of the snake popped up – homes under attack, water under attack, schools under attack, we’re under attack.”
“ The water struggle here is heating up. It taught us how important welfare rights is to water rights and social justice . . they’ve been fighting for access to clean affordable water for 15 years. That welfare rights is about poor people . . . that they are not trying to make a profit off of poor folks . . . makes me proud.”
“Welfare Rights has accumulated 50 years of experience and knowledge fighting on behalf of the poor for the new wave of fighters to learn from and take to the next level. I’ve learned so much from these fighters.”
Visit http://peoplestribune.org/pt-news/2016/08/50th-anniversary-celebration-welfare-rights-movement-1966-2016/ for more coverage.
Celebration of the 50th anniversary of the welfare rights movement
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