At this time of intensifying political, economic, and moral crisis, with the lives of the most vulnerable and the spirits of all under vicious attack, people in growing numbers around the country are fighting back for their lives, communities, and deepest values.
Fifty years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called for a Poor People’s Campaign to begin a “revolution of values” in America. We are reigniting these efforts to unite the poor, disenfranchised, and marginalized to transform our nation’s political, economic and moral structures.
Join us on Sunday, May 13th from 6-8pm EDT for a mass meeting in Washington, D.C. and via livestream to kick off 40 days of nonviolent moral fusion direct action and hear about the vision and strategy of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival from campaign co-chairs the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.
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Trainings & Events
Monday, May 7
D.C. Poor People's Campaign Phone Bank Washington, D.C. 10am-2pm EDT RSVP
D.C. Poor People's Campaign Phone Bank Washington, D.C. 5pm-8pm EDT RSVP
Art Build: East L.A. Los Angeles, CA 4-8pm PDT RSVP
FL Poor People's Campaign Training and Information Tallahassee, FL 5:30pm-8pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action State Training Sanford, NC 6pm-9pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action State Training Rochester, NY 6pm-9pm EDT RSVP
40 Days of Action Organizing Meeting Baton Rouge, LA 6pm-8pm CDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action State Training Little Rock, AR 6pm-8pm CDT RSVP
Fresno: Moral Monday Mass Meeting Fresno, CA 6:30pm-8:30pm PDT RSVP
Tuesday, May 8
D.C. Poor People's Campaign Phone Bank Washington, D.C. 10am-2pm EDT RSVP
D.C. Poor People's Campaign Phone Bank
Washington, D.C. 5pm-8pm EDT RSVP
Creative Arts Build Washington, D.C. 12pm-5pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training Washington, D.C. 5:30pm-9:30pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training Millerton, NY 5:30-8:30pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training Lecompton, KS 5:30pm-7:30pm CDT RSVP
Art & Music Training Española, NM 5:30pm-8:30pm MDT RSVP
San Diego Mini Mass Meeting San Diego, CA 6pm-8pm PDT RSVP
Education Potluck Fayetteville, AR 6pm-7pm CDT RSVP
Wednesday, May 9
D.C. Poor People's Campaign Phone Bank
Washington, D.C.
10am-2pm EDT RSVP
D.C. Poor People's Campaign Phone Bank
Washington, D.C.
5pm-8pm EDT RSVP
Peace Team & Marshal Training
Columbus, OH
10am-12:30pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
Buffalo, NY
5:30pm-8:30pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
Concord, NH
6:30-9:30pm EDT RSVP
Thursday, May 10
Poor People's Campaign: Political & Moral Education Conversation
Austin, TX
5pm-6pm CDT RSVP
Public Meeting: 40 Days of Action
Milwaukee, WI
5pm-8pm CDT RSVP
Friday, May 11
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
New Orleans, LA
5pm-8pm CDT RSVP
Miami Poor People's Campaign Mass Meeting
Palmetto Bay, FL
7pm-8:30pm EDT RSVP
Saturday, May 12
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
Saint Johnsbury, VT
12pm-5pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
Seattle, WA
12pm-3pm PDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
Washington, D.C.
1-4pm, 5-8pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
Los Angeles, CA
1pm-5pm PDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
Cincinnati, OH
1pm-4:30pm EDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
Dover, NH
2-6pm EDT RSVP
Civil Disobedience Training
Kansas City, MO
4pm-6pm CDT RSVP
Nonviolent Moral Fusion Direct Action Training
Fort Smith, AR
2:30pm-4:30pm CDT RSVP
Sunday, May 13
PPC: Pre-Action Training
Barre, VT
4:45pm-9pm EDT RSVP
40-Days of Non-Violent Moral Fusion Direct Action Launch Event
Topeka, KS
4pm-6:30pm CDT RSVP
Ohio Poor People's Campaign Mass Meeting
Cincinnati, OH
5:30pm-7:30pm EDT RSVP
To watch our livestream and see a full list of local & national events, visit our website."The Souls of Poor Folk; Homeless Camps in Gray’s Harbor; Nat’l Day of Action May 14" Repairers of the Breach in Goldsboro, North Carolina, United States
Auditing America 50 years after the Poor People’s Campaign challenged racism,
poverty, the war economy/militarism, and our national morality.
READ THE REPORT
MORAL MOVEMENT NEWS
Stephanie Frescas
As young gun control activists rally behind the power of the vote, very little has been mentioned of the other opponent the movement faces: voter suppression.
Why #NeverAgain Can’t Fight Alone Against Gun Violence
The conversation around current gun control advocacy have set up the NRA as the biggest antagonist, but as young activists rally behind the power of the vote, very little has been mentioned of the other opponent the movement faces: voter suppression. by Stephanie Frescas
At the Washington D.C. March for Our Lives event, speakers had a warning: “Politicians, either represent the people or get out,” Cameron Kasky, an Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student, declared. “Stand for us or beware: The voters are coming.” Voters will have to face some roadblocks, however.
As a previous dispatch discussed, extremist politicians have implemented laws across the country that transparently suppress voting rights — especially that of youth, people of color, women, the poor, and the elderly. Rev. William J. Barber, II, president and senior lecutrer of Repairers of the Breach, and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival, spoke at the March for Our Lives event, citing “the same politicians who refuse to pass sensible gun reform are also suppressing your votes. Since 2010, 24 states have passed voter suppression bills that target African-Americans, Latinos, poor people and students,” he said.
Florida, the center of the national media’s current coverage of gun control advocacy, has certainly not been immune to these attacks.
Governor Rick Scott, who’s announced a Senate bid, started his tenure with a barrage of voter suppression efforts. In 2011, he signed HB 1355, which slashed early voting from 14 to 8 days, imposed severe regulations that resulted in various groups halting their voter registration efforts, invalidated mail-in ballots if their signature didn’t match the signature on record — without allowing these voters to rectify the problem, or even notifying them, and eliminated a provision that allowed voters whose name or address had changed due to marriage, divorce, or a move by a military family, to change the information at the polls.
“A lot of tactics that were used to get the people out to vote were directly targeted,” Reverend Ron Rawls, with the Poor People’s Campaign in Florida, recalls. “Churches were able to do what we call ‘Souls to the Polls,’ so the Sunday before an election we took huge groups straight from church to the polls. But, immediately, when this new governor came in, he reduced the early voting. A couple years later the public justice ruled that that was unconstitutional and violated the Voting Rights Act, so they increased the number of days that we could use for early voting. But the state of Florida was still able to have the discretion of local counties supervising the elections. So they were able to withhold the Sunday portion.”
HB 1355 was just one step in his effort to suppress the votes of Floridians, however. Scott also asked his Secretary of State to conduct a purge of non-citizens from voter rolls in 2012, which resulted in a highly-flawed list of 182,000 suspected non-citizen voters, which was narrowed down to 2,700 people, 60% of whom were Hispanic. Additionally, the purge was suspiciously, and illegally, close to Florida’s primaries. But Governor Scott defended the move, even after the Department of Justice notified Florida that, amongst other offenses, the purge took place after the federal deadline for election changes.
The majority of HB 1355 and the 2012 voter purge were eventually struck down by a mixture of the still-in-power Voting Rights Act, the court of the Northern District of Florida, and the Florida Supreme Court. But one of Governor Scott’s most severe voting suppression measures has stuck to this date.
In 2016, the Sentencing Project estimated that 6.1 million were disenfranchised due to a felony conviction. This form of suppression is especially harsh in Florida, where 1.5 million were disenfranchised, with one in five African Americans unable to vote. Governor Scott’s predecessor had implemented a process where people who finished sentences for non-violent felonies were automatically up for re-enfranchisement. Scott reversed this policy, however, and required anyone who wanted to regain their right to vote to wait 5–7 years before even applying. Applicants then face a clemency board, headed by the governor. There is no oversight to the decisions of the clemency board — they can deny or grant re-enfranchisement for whatever reason.
“Unfortunately, even after the grueling process that we undergo, [the] majority of applications are ultimately denied,” Jessica Younts, Program Director at the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) laments.
Florida’s current disenfranchisement policy is not only cruel and distinctly undemocratic — it may affect crime rates. While the Florida Parole Commission reported that around 33% of previously convicted felons commit new offenses, only 11% of those who had been re-enfranchised did so.
Though Younts is one of the few that made it through the process with their right to vote restored, she looks back on it as a torturous experience. She put in her application in 2008, years after fully serving her sentence. As she waited, she went on with her life. She started law school, she finished law school — and by 2011 her application had yet to even be reviewed.
“Thankfully, an attorney offered to represent me pro bono,” Younts says. She attributes this as the reason she was able to get to her clemency hearing, and ultimately regain her right to vote. But even with a professional to help her, being at the mercy of an essentially unregulated procedure was “humiliating, degrading, and harsh.”
“The process requires an intrusive interview and investigation,” she shares. “Then, at the hearing, your past is publicly displayed in front of an audience, only to then be ultimately judged by people who know nothing about you but what they see on paper. Some people may feel that somehow we deserve this sort of treatment, but this is all after we served our sentence, remained a law abiding citizens up until the point of our hearing — which can be up to 15 years post incarceration — went through the rigorous application, investigation and hearing process, and made it way all the way up to Tallahassee.”
After having her life picked at by strangers, Younts was granted her right to vote in 2013 — over 10 years after her release from prison.
Thanks to an immense effort spearheaded by groups like the FRRC, an amendment was placed on the ballot for Florida’s mid-term election that would automatically restore the vote to non-violent ex-felons who have served their sentences.
Although this is a wonderful success, felony disenfranchisement is only one of a myriad of voter suppression efforts in Florida. Governor Scott’s measures are not the only source of suppression, by far. Florida is also notorious for its partisan gerrymandering, for one. The state’s photo ID requirement has been in place since 1998. 90,000 people reported instances of voter intimidationduring the 2012 elections.
All of this is not to say that “the voters are coming” is a hollow threat. But the attacks against voting rights are so widespread, that it will inevitably affect any movement looking to change the status quo. It’s a challenge worth strategizing for, especially if we want to end gun violence not just in Florida, but across the country. According to the report, The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America 50 Years After the Poor People’s Campaign Challenged Racism, Poverty, the War Economy/ Militarism and Our National Morality, “23 states have adopted some form of voter suppression laws since 2010.”
The immediate solution lies in linking yourself to as many people as possible. Building a movement that reaches across platforms, to form a force with numbers that can’t be diluted by corrupt vote-suppressing policies. So many marginalized groups are organizing and fighting to have their voices heard — what if the #NeverAgain movement joined the 27,000 DACA recipients in Florida? The 2.5 million uninsured? The 2.97 million living below the poverty line?
A movement can only improve as it includes as many voices from vulnerable communities as it can. Gun violence terrorizes people in this country across racial and economic boundaries. To create an agenda that will truly fix the problem, we need to include all the voices affected by it.
The wave of gun control advocacy currently being reported by national media is being led by mostly white, well-off teenagers. They’ve made efforts toinclude and raise the voices of black and brown peers across the country, but the efforts have been uneven — students of color from Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School, for example, have spoken out against their exclusion from the #NeverAgain movement. These students have pointed out that a conversation about ending gun deaths should include police violence. They’ve expressed that they don’t feel safer with more police patrolling their school, but are instead afraid of racial profiling.
As an activist involved with numerous causes and groups, Rev. Rawls has attended his fair share of rallies and marches. And he’s noticed a pattern. Whether he’s fighting to remove Confederate monuments, or for gay rights, or against guns, the same people keep coming to the rallies to fight against him. Rev. Rawls saw a lot of familiar faces at the March for Our Lives rally he attended in Florida.
“The same people that protest everything that I do, on racial issues, those same people were there protesting the March for Our Lives,” Rev. Rawls explains. “They were saying the same things. [But there were a] bunch of kids, bunch of middle-class people, and it surprised them. They’re talking about gun control, but no way did they ever think that the confederates and white supremacists were gonna come out and fight against them.”
“People have to begin to understand how all of it is interconnected,” he goes on. “We have a lot of things in common, and we need to stay together.”
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Minnesota Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
The quality of our lives and our democracy is woefully diminished when we have so many people struggling in our community.
WATCH VIDEO
Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
National campaign leaders visit homeless camps in Washington State, where hundreds of families are living in poverty.
LOUIS KRAUSS | THE DAILY WORLD Rev. Dr. William Barber II meets with a homeless camper along the Chehalis River in Aberdeen. This was his last stop on a nationwide tour of select impoverished communities as part of the Poor People’s Campaign.
Poor People’s Campaign makes stop in Aberdeen as they combat nationwide poverty
Homelessness in Aberdeen and the rest of Grays Harbor has emerged as one of the most challenging issues locals face. A group that visited the city Tuesday brought with it a reminder that it’s also one of the most challenging facing the country. The organizers are looking to eliminate poverty nationwide and unite poor people around the country in order to push for economic justice.Rev. Dr. William Barber II, a North Carolina activist and a national board member for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, visited the Chehalis River homeless camps Tuesday morning, his last stop on a tour of notably impoverished communities such as Detroit, and small communities in West Virginia, Kentucky and Mississippi. Barber is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1968 effort that bore the same name. That was cut short by King’s assassination. Barber’s effort looks to eliminate poverty, systemic racism, the war economy and ecological devastation.
“As we moved around the country, people would tell us about Aberdeen and Grays Harbor, and after hearing some things I’d think, ‘No way that’s true. That can’t be in America,’” said Barber.
Along with about 20 other volunteers from the Poor People’s Campaign and Chaplains on the Harbor, which invited the group, Barber strolled through a couple of the riverfront camps, listening to stories of how some people ended up living there in tents.
After a few minutes of observing the camp’s conditions and speaking with those who live there, Barber said he would want to bring a homeless person from Aberdeen with him to speak to Congress as part of a 40-day protest in both Washington D.C. and other state capitals beginning in mid-May.
“I want to show this to Congress, and juxtapose it with Alabama,” said Barber. “We cannot keep racializing this stuff. The racism, classism, all of it needs to be together.”
Barber would later lead a community meeting at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Aberdeen, which featured a handful of homeless speakers and other community activists and health specialists.
More than 80 people showed up for the meeting, with many chanting protest songs as they waited, such as: “Everybody’s got a right to live, and before this Campaign fails, we’ll all go down to jail.”
There was a wide variety of points made at the meeting. Former Behavioral Health Resources worker Jamel Lewis reiterated how Grays Harbor leads Washington counties in overdose death rates in recent years, and Barber noted that more than 50 percent of all U.S. federal spending goes towards the military.
It was a raucous environment, with Barber gradually building to a booming voice by the end of his speech. Several religious leaders from Seattle, and Gregory Rickel, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, were here for the campaign’s visit.
Rev. Sarah Monroe, from Chaplains on the Harbor, has been working with the Poor People’s Campaign since it began several years ago, and said it was important to maintain efforts to address poverty as a national issue.
“My efforts are almost entirely focused locally, but what’s important with this campaign is people are struggling all over the country, and this is a way to connect efforts,” said Monroe. “What’s happening with poverty is not just local, and being part of a national conversation is important.”
While leaving the camp, Barber told The Daily World that the group’s efforts aren’t just to protest, but to create a more universal moral outrage about American poverty by getting the stories of poor and homeless people heard on a national level.
“Our movement is not just to have a big march and go home. It’s to create a platform where the people here can speak, give their voice,” he said. “We have to change the narrative in this country, and you can’t change it until we change the narrator. We had 26 presidential election debates, you didn’t hear anything about the people here, about poverty.”
Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, the Campaign’s other co-chair from New York who did not attend the Aberdeen meeting, said the effort is also looking to get the attention from those who aren’t poor, which they believe will also help shift the narrative.
“A lot of what this tour is, is getting this country to kind of weep and pay attention, to stop in its tracks to see what’s really happening, and how people are living,” said Theoharis. “Whether it’s in homeless encampments of Aberdeen, or Lowndes County, Alabama, where people are living with raw sewage in their yards, it’s to get people paying attention to that.”
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Trainings & Events
May 6, 2018
Rev. William J. Barber II Sermon on War & Militarism
May 13, 2018
Poor People’s Campaign Mass Meeting in Washington, D.C.
May 14, 2018
Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival Day of Action
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