The MORE Tour kicked off in El Paso, TX and Greensville/Greensboro, NC. It continues this week in Maine and New Hampshire.
John,
On Monday, Sept. 16, we kicked off the We Must Do M.O.R.E. National Tour (Mobilize, Organize, Register, and Educate) in El Paso, TX. The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival's M.O.R.E. Tour will highlight the work of the Campaign on the ground in more than 20 states from September 2019 to May 2020. The tour will culminate in the Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington on June 20, 2020, where thousands of poor people, clergy, and moral agents will gather at the nation’s capitol to demonstrate our power.
We began the tour in El Paso, TX, with our partners at the Border Network for Human Rights. On Monday, we held a powerful Mass Meeting at All Saints Episcopal Church, and Fernando Garcia, Executive Director of BNHR, explained why, following the racist attacks in El Paso over the summer and the continued militarization of poor border communities, we had to start our tour on the border:
"On August 3rd, they wanted us to stop — to stop resisting, to stop welcoming immigrants and refugees. But that will not happen. The answer is, we must do MORE. El Paso has become the symbol of resistance."
We continued with community canvassing throughout border communities, and finished the tour with a march and rally in the city’s main square. At the rally, we proclaimed that next year, on June 20, 2020, the border would go to Washington!
As Rev. Dr. Barber declared, "Right here in El Paso, the rising begins ... People are rising to build power, to change the narrative, all over the country! We’ve got to change the moral conversation of the nation!"
THE WE MUST DO MORE TOUR BRINGS US BACK TO NORTH CAROLINA
The second stop of the We Must Do M.O.R.E. Tour, Sept. 27–30, brought us back to North Carolina, where the Moral Mondays movement transformed state politics and laid critical groundwork for the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
We began in Greenville, where teams of organizers and local partners of the North Carolina Poor People's Campaign canvassed in neighborhoods that have been cast to the margins of the state's political and economic life.
From Greenville, we travelled to Greensboro and gathered for a Moral March and Mass Meeting. As people of many races, ages, faiths, gender and sexual identities, and geographies marched through the city, the weight of history was ever-present — Greensboro is the home of the 1960 lunch counter sit-ins that ignited the Civil Rights Movement and the 1979 Greensboro Massacre.
We ended with a unanimous call for North Carolinians to converge in Washington, DC for the June 20, 2020, Mass Poor People's Assembly and Moral March on Washington.
(All photos credit: Steve Pavey, #HopeInFocus)
Join us this week as the We Must Do M.O.R.E. Tour continues in Maine and New Hampshire!
Forward together,
The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
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