Poor People's Campaign to Challenge Systemic Racism
as Protests at Massachusetts State House Intensify
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Nonviolent Direct Action Planned in Boston,
Part of Wave of Protests that has Hit 35 States, Washington, D.C.
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Poor People, Clergy, Advocates to Demand Immediate Restoration of the Voting Rights Act, End to Racist Gerrymandering, Reversal of State Laws that Prevent Municipalities from Raising Wages, Immigration Justice
Boston— A week after the historic reignition of the Poor People’s Campaign, poor people, clergy and advocates will intensify a six-week season of nonviolent direct action by marching on the Massachusetts State House to demand elected officials take immediate steps to confront systemic racism.
The action in Massachusetts is one of three dozen nationwide, including a major protest planned at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. that will feature Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival co-chairs the Revs. William Barber and Liz Theoharis. It marks the second consecutive Monday protesters will march on the Massachusetts State House.
On May 14, 26 activists blocked Park Street near the State House for an hour after 400 people attended a rally on the State House steps at which poor people and clergy denounced systemic racism, economic inequality, the war economy, and environmental devastation.
Monday’s protest will highlight the connection between systemic racism, poverty and voter suppression. Participants in Monday’s nonviolent direct action are expected to carry signs that read “Voter Suppression = The True Hacking of our Democracy” and “Systemic Racism is Violence.” They’ll call for the immediate restoration of the Voting Rights Act, an end to racist gerrymandering and reversal of state laws that prevent municipalities from raising wages.
Days after President Trump called undocumented immigrants “animals” who “aren’t people,” participants in Monday’s protest will demand a clear and just immigration system that strengthens our democracy through the broad participation of everyone in this country—including a timely citizenship process that guarantees the right to vote.
WHO: Partici pants in Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
WHAT: Protest at Massachusetts State House demanding immediate action to address
s ystemic racism
WHERE: William Gould Shaw / 54th Regiment Monument, Boston Common:
b ottom of steps immediately across Beacon St. from the State House
WHEN: Monday, May 21 at 2PM
BACKGROUND:
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is co-organized by Repairers of the Breach, a social justice organization founded by the Rev. Barber; the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary; and hundreds of local and national grassroots groups across the country.
Last week, campaign co-chairs the Revs. William J. Barber II and Liz Theoharis were among hundreds arrested nationwide in the most expansive wave of nonviolent civil disobedience in U.S. history, kicking off a six-week season of direct action demanding new programs to fight systemic poverty and racism, immediate attention to ecological devastation and measures to curb militarism and the war economy.
The protests mark an emphatic reignition of the Poor People’s Campaign, the 1968 movement started by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and so many others to challenge racism, poverty and militarism. Over 40 days, poor and disenfranchised people, moral leaders and advocates will engage in nonviolent direct action, including by mobilizing voters, knocking on tens of thousands of doors, and holding teach-ins, among other activities, as a moral fusion movement comprised of people of all races and religions takes off.
For the past two years, leaders of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival have carried out a listening tour in dozens of states across this nation, meeting with tens of thousands of people from El Paso, Texas to Marks, Mississippi to South Charleston, West Virginia. Led by the Revs. Barber and Theoharis, the campaign has gathered testimonies from hundreds of poor people and listened to their demands for a better society.
A Poor People’s Campaign Moral Agenda, announced last month, was drawn from this listening tour, while an audit of America conducted with allied organizations, including the Institute for Policy Studies and the Urban Institute, showed that, in many ways, we are worse off than we were in 1968.
The Moral Agenda, which will guide the 40 days of actions, calls for major changes to address systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and our distorted moral narrative, including repeal of the 2017 federal tax law, implementation of federal and state living wage laws, universal single-payer health care, and clean water for all.
The Campaign, expected to be a multi-year effort, draws on the unfinished work of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, reigniting the effort led by civil rights organizations, labor union and tenant unions, farm workers, Native American elders and grassroots organizers to foster a moral revolution of values. Despite real political wins in 1968 and beyond, the original Poor People’s Campaign was tragically cut short, both by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination and by the subversion of the coalition that sustained it. Still, the original vision and many of its followers did not go away.
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Savina Martin
Massachusetts Statewide Coordinating Chair (Eastern Region)
Cell: (339) 216.7181
Michaelann Bewsee
Massachusetts Statewide Coordinating Chair (Western Region)
Arise for Social Justice, Springfield, MA
Khalil Saddiq, Legal Liaison
Massachusetts Statewide Coordinating Chair (Eastern Region)
"Forward Together NOT one step back!"
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"Not one step back"
Cole Harrison
Executive Director
Massachusetts Peace Action - the Commonwealth's largest grassroots peace organization
11 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138
617-354-2169 w
617-466-9274 m
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