Dear Movement Family,
Long before the Senate had a trial on Trump's impeachment, our movement said that he and his enablers deserved moral impeachment for all the policies that promote voter suppression, cage Latino children and mothers, deny health care, refuse living wages and cater to the 1 percent, while neglecting the 43 % of people in this country who are poor and low wealth.
Tomorrow, Wednesday January 29th we will gather in Washington D.C. for a press conference to share our plans to engage historic numbers of poor and impacted people for the Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington on June 20, 2020. Following the press conference, we will join our partners at the Center for Popular Democracy to Swarm the Capital to demand a fair impeachment trial.
In the evening our many faith, labor, student, and organizational partners will come together for a Moral March and Mass Meeting at the Church of the Epiphany (1317 G St., NW, Washington , DC xxxxxx). Please join us there, and for those not in the area, please follow along on livestream at breachrepairers.org/livestream
Photo credit: Steve Pavey
Earlier this month, poor people and moral leaders from across the nation joined the Iowa Poor People’s Campaign for a Moral March on the Democratic Debate. In Des Moines, steelworkers, clergy, farmers, veterans, students, and many others joined together to demand a nationally televised, primetime debate on poverty. At the steps of the debate hall, we delivered a coffin to honor the lives of the 250,000 people who die every year due to conditions of poverty. On the coffin was draped a simple and irrefutable message: “Everybody Has the Right to Live”.
While we marched outside, multiple candidates lifted up the work of the Poor People’s Campaign on the debate stage. The following week, we launched a letter campaign to the DNC and the delegates urging them to call for a nationally-televised debate on poverty, causing several democratic candidates to call for a debate on poverty on Twitter. This is a major narrative breakthrough and we know that it reflects the growing strength of our movement.
Photo credit: Steve Pavey
In just two years we have built powerful coordinating committees in 42 states and have embarked on a 23-state M.O.R.E. Tour (Mobilizing, Organizing, Registering, and Educating for a Movement that Votes), leading to the Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington on June 20th. Our non-partisan movement will be very political, because this is not about Left and Right, but about right and wrong. People are dying. The 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this country hold the stories and solutions, and most importantly, the POWER, to determine the electoral future of the entire nation.
Just one day before the Moral March on the Debate, we marched with the South Carolina Poor People’s Campaign in Charleston as a part of the M.O.R.E. Tour. We centered the experiences of the 2.1 million South Carolinians – 44% of the state population — who are poor and low-wealth. After we marched, we held a Mass Meeting where we gathered to continue to nationalize the growing state-based moral fusion movement in the Palmetto State. This is what it will take in order to truly shift the moral narrative, impact policies and elections at every level of government, and build long-term power for the poor and impacted.
An elder who was in Memphis in April of 1968 offered his blessing at the Iowa Mass Meeting and committed to not be turned back this time. Photo credit: Steve Pavey
Photo credit: Steve Pavey
In Iowa too, we held a powerful Mass Meeting – hundreds attended to listen deeply to directly impacted people and to hear the Campaign’s demands, knowing that we cannot just curse the darkness, but must shine a light out of the misery of our time.
This nation is rising up – from Des Moines to Charleston, and now to Washington D.C.
Forward together!
Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, President of Repairers of the Breach
Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis, Director of the Kairos Center
Co-Chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
