Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, March 4, 2024
Media Contact: Josh Levitt, josh.levitt@berlinrosen.com and Joe Ward jward@breachrepairers.org
In Light of 250,000+ People Who Die Each Year From Poverty and Low Wealth, Poor People’s Campaign Launches 40-week Mobilization Effort to Energize 15 Million Poor and Low-Wage Infrequent Voters
Movement leaders, poor people unite behind promise to ‘Wake the Sleeping Giant’ of millions of poor, low-wage voters
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Mass assemblies launch 40 weeks of action leading up to November’s elections, when poor, low-wealth voters will play crucial role in key states
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Impacted people, advocates, and faith leaders visit Statehouses to give public policy demands to lawmakers, calling on legislators to address issues that will eliminate poverty and low-wealth
NATIONWIDE – Poor and low-wage people united together in mass assemblies at statehouses across 32 states and Washington D.C. alongside Bishop William J. Barber II and the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, on Saturday, March 2, to mobilize poor and low-wage voters and demand legislators take immediate action to end the crisis of death by poverty in the United States. On Monday, March 4, movement leaders reconvened at statehouses to deliver comprehensive moral public policy demands, urging legislators across the political aisle to take immediate action to end the crisis of death by poverty in the United States.
Even as it rained in many capitals during Saturday’s mass assemblies, poor and low-wage people and advocates gathered in full force to declare their votes are demands for living wages, voting rights and other policies to combat poverty and save lives. As part of the assemblies, poor and low-wage voters shared testimony of how poverty has impacted their lives and why politicians need to champion the issues that matter most to poor and low-wealth individuals, including lifting 52 million people out of poverty by creating a living minimum wage. Gatherers carried signs emblazoned with slogans like “Abolish Poverty as the 4th Leading Cause of Death” and “Everybody’s Got a Right to Live.” In many states, caskets were utilized as a symbol of remembrance of the 800 people who die each day from poverty and low wealth.
Thousands and thousands of poor and low-wage voters and moral activists gather in Raleigh, N.C.
The mass assemblies and statehouse visits took place in key battleground states, where the margin of victory in the 2020 general election was near or less than 3%. This includes Arizona (.3%), Georgia (.2%), Michigan (2.8%), North Carolina (1.4%), Pennsylvania (1.2%), and Wisconsin (.7%). “These margins of victory are so thin,” said the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and co-chair of the 2024 mobilization. “The Poor People’s Campaign is mobilizing to wake the sleeping giant of low-wage voters who have been ignored for far too long. Do not listen to those who say poor and low-wage voters are apathetic about politics or marginal to election outcomes. Poor and low-wage voters have the power to change electoral outcomes up and down the ballot in November. We are putting politicians in every state on notice: if you want our votes, you must legislate to end the crisis of death by poverty in America,” Rev. Barber said during a national broadcast at Saturday’s mass assembly in North Carolina.
There are approximately 85 million poor and low-wage eligible voters in this country who represent at least 30% of the electorate. In so-called battleground states it’s close to and over 40%. Other mass assemblies and statehouse visits took place in Alabama, California, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and West Virginia.
Across the country, poor and low-wage people blanketed the airwaves with their demand for action to eliminate poverty and low wealth, including actions in critical battleground states such as Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin, and Virginia.
“[On March 2] thousands of us marched on Raleigh to take back the mic from extremists to make our voices heard,” said Chaplin Robert Zachary, North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign, outside the assembly in Raleigh on March 4. “We know the power statehouses have in impacting policies, which is why we demand abolishing poverty as the fourth leading cause of death in the United States.”
“We are seeing from state houses all over the nation that we will NOT be silenced or ignored anymore. The number one reason poor and low-wage workers don’t vote is because no one talks to us. No one listens to us,” said Von Allen Goodman, Tri-Chair of the Massachusetts Poor People’s Campaign, at the assembly in Boston on March 2. “This nation is home to 52 million people who make less than a living wage in their state. We will NOT be silenced anymore. Fight poverty, not the poor.”
“We all will get together and move as one so those at the top cannot ignore our voices and must act,” said Christina Jimenez, a CWA member and Maximus call center worker from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, told the crowd of voters assembled in Jackson on March 2. “When we stand together with our families and our children, we will win.”
“In a time of division, exclusion, and hate, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is calling for love, hope, and justice and declaring life everywhere there’s death. We are building the power to make the nation better for everyone. When you lift from the bottom, everyone rises,” said the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign.
Moral activists gather in Jackson, MS.
Poverty is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. The Poor People’s Campaign is calling on state legislators to address the crisis of death by poverty, by enacting a moral public policy agenda that challenges the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of healthcare, militarism, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism. Monday’s visits with state leaders and elected officials on both sides of the political aisle, included drop offs of letters that outlined a moral public policy agenda that includes:
- Abolishing poverty as the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.
- Lifting wages to living minimum wages of at least $15 +/hour (indexed for inflation)
- Guaranteeing full and expanded voting rights
- Ending voter suppression in all its forms
- Guaranteeing workers’ rights and labor rights
- Providing healthcare for all
- Providing affordable and adequate housing
- Bringing an end to gun violence, profit and proliferation
- Ensuring the full protection of women’s rights
- Advancing environmental justice issues that secure clean air and water
- Ensuring public education is fully-funded
- Ensuring immigration laws are just
- Working to end hate, division, and the extremist political agenda
Mass Assembly in Madison, WI
“In our campaign across the country, poor and low-wage allies have decided that we are not accepting the silence from the media and political establishment that ignores 800 daily deaths of poor and low-wealth people,” said Rev. Barber. “Poverty by America is an abolishable and unnecessary reality that can be eradicated by enacting policies that address the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of healthcare, militarism, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism. When our politics makes it easier to get a gun than to get food, quality education, living wages, or healthcare, then there’s a problem with the soul of our nation.”
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