Poor Peoples Campaign launches 40 days of action

 
On May 13, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, launched 40 days of nonviolent direct action across the country to confront systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and the nation’s distorted moral narrative. Actions involving thousands of people were held in Washington, D.C., and in 35 state capitals. More than 1,000 were arrested for acts of civil disobedience.
Weekly events organized around themes will include mass meetings on Sundays, Moral Monday direct actions, and educational and cultural events. The first week’s events focused on children, women and people with disabilities in poverty. Protests in subsequent weeks will focus on: the persecution of immigrants, systemic racism, xenophobia and the mistreatment of indigenous communities; the war economy and militarism; ecological devastation, and the right to health and a healthy planet; education, living wage jobs, income and housing; and our nation’s distorted moral narrative. These actions will continue in the nation’s capital and around the country through late June, culminating in a mass rally in Washington, D.C. June 23. Participants will then continue building the campaign in the states, which is expected to be a multi-year effort.
“We’re living in an impoverished democracy,” the Rev. William Barber II, a co-chair of the campaign, told the crowd in Washington May 14. “People across the country are standing up against the lie of scarcity. We know that in the richest country in the world, there is no reason for children to go hungry, for the sick to be denied health care and for citizens to have their votes suppressed. Both parties have to be challenged—one for what it does and one for what it doesn’t do.”