The Plight and Fight Poverty Initiative Immersion Chapel Service

By Leslie Jackson, Crystal Hall, Nkosi Anderson, Rev. Thea Reggio, Suzy Ujvagi and Rev. Blair Moorhead
February 8, 2010 in James Chapel at Union Theological Seminary

What does life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness mean? Are the rights that are promised to us in the Declaration of Independence evident in our experiences today?

Union Theological Seminary students along with religious and community leaders traveled together January 13-22, 2010 for The Plight and Fight: An Immersion Experience. Together they explored the global scope of poverty by examining the reality of poverty in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in the midst of this current economic crisis. We learned from community and religious leaders who are involved in a growing movement to end poverty. Exploring tools and strategies for overcoming and eliminating poverty, we dialogued with leaders from local and national poor people’s organizations about their struggles to attain health care, living wage jobs, affordable housing, and basic human dignity. The experience included reality tours, Bible studies, video-showings, and site visits with poor people’s organizations and religious congregations engaged in mission work and community organizing. Significant time was spent learning about theories of poverty and race, the history of poor people organizing, and the legacy of the Poor People’s Campaign launched by Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968, and we discussed the theological implication of building a movement led by the poor to end poverty and explore the unique role of religious leaders and communities in this effort to create social transformation.

We worked with Poverty Scholars partner organizations, including:
Asian Americans United, Philadelphia
Casino Free Philadelphia
CATA, Philadelphia
Domestic Workers United, New York
Media Mobilizing Project, Philadelphia
National Economic and Social Rights Initiative, New York
North East Pennsylvania Organizing Center, Wilkes-Barre
Philadelphia Student Union, Philadelphia
Picture the Homeless, New York
Restaurant Opportunities Center, New York
The Simple Way, Philadelphia
United Taxi Workers Association, Philadelphia
United Workers, Baltimore

Upon return students and faculty prepared a noon chapel service for the Union Theological Seminary community. Barbara Lundblad, a faculty member at Union, led the chapel community through a reading of the Declaration of Independence, while injustices interrupted the crowd. Leslie Jackson evoked the words of Dr. Martin Luther King from his speech at the SCLC staff retreat in 1967. Crystal Hall and Thia Reggio, both first year M.Div. students, reflected on their experiences in Philadelphia in the presence of the Liberty Bell, and at ROC-NY’s Prayer Vigil for workers rights. Blair Moorhead and Suzy Ujvagi led the community in a litany adapted from Leviticus 25, which states, “Proclaim liberty to all who live there.” Lastly, Nkosi Anderson, in a lively benediction, called the entire community to “let justice ring!”

Reflection by Crystal Hall

I heard a certain version of events in American history class as a child. The Pilgrims and the American Indians shared a peaceful feast of thanksgiving. The Africans that were brought to these shores were the courageous heroes of the Underground Railroad. The women who asked for the right to vote popularized the soapbox speech. The Southern segregationists only needed to be reminded by four young men at a lunch counter that, indeed, all have a right to be served.

My teachers continued that those are things in the past. America is now the greatest country in the world, because of the freedoms granted in its founding documents. American citizens are now truly free to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If you work hard enough and persevere long enough you too can achieve the American dream.

During the Immersion, the Poverty Initiative and local activists took a walking tour of Philadelphia. Our first stop was Independence Park, the site of both Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell. Within sight of where the Declaration was signed, we visited the Liberty Bell Center, a self-described “national shrine”. The National Park Service, like my grade school history teachers, had a story to tell.

Abolition. Women’s suffrage. Civil Rights. Each of these struggles used the Liberty Bell as a symbol in creating a more just and equitable society. Did you hear the litany? Abolition. Women’s suffrage. Civil Rights. (Pause.) According to the national narrative, America’s struggle for liberty ended with the Civil Rights movement. But for the mother in the shelter system, the undocumented immigrant working three jobs just to survive, and for the student fighting school violence with non-violent resistance, the struggle is not a thing of the past… The struggle for the human rights to housing, a living wage, education, and health care is not a thing of the past. These are the pursuits of freedom and liberty by sophisticated, audacious people directly impacted by poverty in this nation, today.

“Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Do these words perhaps have a more hollow ring? The Liberty Bell is inscribed with words from Leviticus 25:10: “You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” The Kensington Welfare Rights Union of North Philly protested for the right to housing at the Liberty Bell in the 1990s. Some were arrested and banned from the grounds. Leviticus 25:10 continues, though not inscribed on the bell, “It shall be a jubilee for you: you shall return, every one of you, to your property and every one of you to your family.” “Liberty” in this passage is understood in terms of economic redistribution and forgiveness of debts. The Liberty Bell is cracked and silent.

But, no. We cannot allow ourselves to become cynics, jaded into the assumed inevitability of a history that repeats itself. This struggle, to achieve the ideals of our founding documents, is ours too, not as a patriotic duty but as the fight for human dignity. If we are to be judged by how we treated the least of these, as Willie Baptist says, we must understand that we—you and me and the man who slept on the steps of Riverside Church last night—we are “all of these.” We will all be judged by how we strived for justice for each other. This is our struggle, not because we are American but because we are all children of God.

Reading by Leslie Jackson

The Declaration of Independence was valuable to Dr. King because there within the text he found the words by which the government must become accountable and the words by which we can hold the government accountable.

In his I Have a Dream speech during the March on Washington in 1963 he drew upon those themes of accountability and again four years later in May of 1967 at the Southern Christian Leadership Conference Staff retreat he returned us to those valuable words when he said:

We read one day, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ But if a man doesn’t have a job or an income, he has neither life nor liberty nor the possibility for the pursuit of happiness. He merely exists.

Reflection by Thia Reggio

I am changed.
I want to speak of how it lifts me up and makes me better.
But first I have to admit that I am afraid; I am shaken; I am undone.
Interrupted, insufficient, in an altered state.
Can I stand with those who are so much wiser, so much stronger, so much louder?
Can a quiet voice be heard? For we must be heard.
We must be seen, standing together, knowing each other, feeling each other deeply and compassionately.
I am changed—into we.
In this way, I am lifted, as we are lifted.
In this way, I am better, when we are better.
Shoulder to shoulder I am not afraid—I see your candle, you see mine. Our light is stronger when we are close.
Standing together, we are not shaken, our closeness shores us up, makes room for hope.
Work done together cannot be undone, for it continues even when I am weary and must rest.
It is we who are wiser, stronger, louder.
We are change.

Litany by Suzy Ujvagi and Blair Moorhead

Leader: You shall make the trumpet sound throughout all your land
Response: Proclaim liberty for all who live there
Leader: For it is Jubilee, it shall be holy to you
Response: Proclaim liberty for all who live there
Leader: You will eat your fill of the field, and dwell there in safety
Response: Proclaim liberty for all who live there
Leader: Do not take advantage of your neighbor when buying and selling
Response: Proclaim liberty for all who live there
Leader: If one of you becomes poor and falls into poverty
Response: Proclaim liberty for all who live there
Leader: All the country you possess shall be released
Response: Proclaim liberty for all who live there

Let Justice Ring Rap Benediction by Nkosi Anderson

May we
Who believe in community,
Go forth
And stand against poverty.
From NYC
To Wilkes-Barre,
Baltimore
And North-Philly.
Across the world
We must demand,
Housing as a right
For woman and man.

All: Let Justice Ring
Leader: As the poor rise up!
All: Let Justice Ring
Leader: As we take a stand!
All: Let Justice Ring
Leader: As we proclaim liberty
All: Let Justice Ring
Leader: Throughout all the land!
All: Let Justice Ring
We’re all God’s family
All: Let Justice Ring
You, you, you, and me.

Let justice ring! (repeat)