Saturday, December 29, 2018

Starting 2019 with our demands The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

To    
Dear Alfred,
On January 7th, we will return to the U.S. Capitol and deliver our campaign demands to the new Congress, focusing on voter suppression. In 2018, we saw attacks on the voting rights of poor people of color sweep our nation; from Georgia to Kansas, from North Carolina to North Dakota. We know that voting rights are central to every demand we have, and we will continue to call on Congress to take action to protect and expand voting rights, end racial gerrymandering, restore the right to vote to all formerly and currently incarcerated people, and more.
But like many of you, we’re taking time first to reflect on all that we accomplished in 2018.
We launched a movement committed to breaking the silence and telling the truth about the interlocking evils of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy/militarism and our nation’s distorted moral narrative.
Together, we engaged in the largest wave of nonviolent civil disobedience in recent history and took action in over 40 states. Tens of thousands of people rallied on the National Mall to demand that we fight poverty, not the poor. Hundreds of poor and dispossessed people testified before the nation and made their demands heard. Leaders emerged in states around the country and we engaged in moral fusion organizing to build a broad and deep movement to sustain the fight for the long term.
GIVE TODAY
States that participated in the 40 Days of Moral Action in 2018
States that participated in the 40 Days of Moral Action in 2018
From California to the Carolinas, from Alabama to Alaska, from Michigan to Mississippi, from Southern Florida to Northern Maine, from the Mexican border to the Bronx, and many places in between, we have raised a moral cry about the 140 million poor and low income people fighting to survive. We are now in the second phase of the campaign and are organizing for the times ahead.
In the last few months, Poor People's Campaign leaders have won significant legal battles in places like Tennessee, where moral witnesses who engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience saw their cases dismissed, and Kentucky, where their legislature’s attempt to shut them out of the State Capitol was found unconstitutional; they have organized Poor People's Hearings from Gresham, OR to Little Rock, AR to Harrisburg, PA; and they have engaged in moral fusion organizing across lines of difference and historic division.
We are proud of what we’ve done together, but as we witness the recent attacks on SNAP recipients and families at the border, veterans being deported, people made homeless by the worst forest fires in this country's recent history, our communities struggling from lack of access to clean water, and 37 million people still without healthcare, we know our work is just getting started.
We learned this in 2018: There is a hunger for change and action in our nation. And there is nothing more powerful than when we stand united in common suffering and hope.
Over one million of you tuned in by livestream, followed us online and joined us in the streets. If just 5% of you donated $10, it would help keep this movement moving. Before the year closes, donate whatever you can to our movement so we can keep pushing forward and make 2019 the year in which the voices of 140 million poor folk in America were undeniably heard.
Thank you for your commitment to the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and for continuing to build a moral movement to save the soul of America.
Forward together, not one step back,
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II & Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
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