Dear Friends,
Today marks 100 days from the Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington. This effort is bigger than any single political campaign or candidate, and we need your help to get the word out and to help organize delegations from your community. We are rising together to build power with 140 million poor and low-income people in this nation.
RSVP today at www.june2020.org and go to our twitter page to share posts in your networks to spread the word. And register to join us TONIGHT for a National Mobilization Call at 8.30 pm EDT on Zoom - or tune in via Facebook Live.
Last week, in consultation with public health experts, we suspended all large public gatherings for the next month in light of the coronavirus. While we are clear about the dangers of the coronavirus, we are also clear that, now more than ever, we need to build a broad and deep national moral movement – rooted in the leadership of poor people – to unite our country from the bottom up. It is all the more important to enact the Campaign’s demands if we want to fully address this crisis, including our demand for a full presidential debate on poverty.
Please join us to call on CNN, Univision and the DNC to host a full, televised debate on poverty this primary debate season.
Use the sample email below to personally email the leaders of these organizations ahead of Sunday’s debate:
Jeff Zucker, CEO of CNN, [email protected]
Vincent Sadusky, CEO of Univision, [email protected]
Tom Perez, Chair, Democratic National Committee, [email protected]
Dear DNC Debate Sponsors,
We know that 250,000 people die every year from poverty, or close to 700 people everyday. It is unconscionable that in a nation with 140 million poor and low-income people, representing 43% of this nation, we have not had a full presidential debate on poverty and its interlocking injustices. We know the coronavirus/COVID-19 is exposing with brutal clarity how distorted our moral narrative is in this nation, and how all the more urgent the multiple crises of poverty are now. While our nation’s leaders are already promising to bail out corporations, from airlines to the oil and gas industry, there remain no guarantees for free vaccines or ensuring universal health care, water, housing, and the livelihoods of 140 million poor and low-income people in the United States.
In a forthcoming study, we will show that there are 23 million poor and low-income non-voters in the US who can be mobilized around an agenda that takes on their needs and demands. Over 40% of US workers are working for less than $15 / hour. At least 25 states have passed voter suppression laws since 2010, many of which are the same states with the highest levels of poverty. Poverty, systemic racism and their interlocking injustices are already at the center of the battle for the soul of this democracy, whether we like it or not. Now we need them at the center of political debates.
Despite every major Democratic candidate’s commitment to join a full debate focused on poverty, here we are at the eleventh out of the twelve originally-scheduled DNC debates, without any single debate focused on poverty and the 140 million people who cannot meet the basic needs and ensure the security of their families. We are literally in the eleventh hour, and we need the DNC, Univision and CNN to make poverty and its interlocking injustices the central topic of the March 15 debate.
Yours Truly,
Again, we hope you will join us tonight to discuss the current moment and how we are going to move Forward Together and Not One Step Back,
Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
