Calling for a New Poor People’s Campaign on Watch Night

Dan Jones

December 19, 2016

Category: Events

The Moral Revival Poor People’s Campaign Watch Night service was a great success! If you missed it and want to watch it now, you can go to breachrepairers.org/livestream.
This New Year’s Eve the Kairos Center is partnering with Rev. William Barber, Repairers of the Breach, and others to hold a National Watch Night Service in Washington, D.C.
On New Year’s Eve in 1862 — at the height of the Civil War — slaves, freedmen, and other abolitionists waited with anticipation for the enactment of the Emancipation Proclamation on New Year’s Day. The proclamation meant that the Union Army was finally committed to freedom for the slaves living under the Confederacy, and eventually led to defeat for the whole slave-owning class.
This year, we’ll take Watch Night as an opportunity to call for a new effort against the system that allows a few to profit from the poverty and suffering of many. This service is building off of “The Revival: Time for A Moral Revolution of Values” 22-state tour organized by Repairers of the Breach, and will also focus on the call for a New Poor People’s Campaign against racism, militarism, poverty, ecological devastation.

We learned a lot through our participation in the Moral Revival tour — about just how bad it is, and getting worse, for growing numbers of people all over the country; as well as the ways that those same people are waking up to their own power to change things, and the greater power that we have when we come together. The Kairos Center was a co-organizer of the tour and our co-director Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis took part in much of it, helping to lead Revival services and education about the Bible’s call for justice through the leadership of the poor. She’ll also be playing a major role in the Watch Night Service, along with others from the Kairos Center network and groups calling for a New Poor People’s Campaign.
If you can, please join us on Dec. 31 at 10 p.m at Metropolitan A.M.E. Church, 1518 M Street, NW. – the site where the funerals of both Rosa Parks and Frederick Douglass were held. If you’re not able to be in D.C. you can watch the service on the Repairers of the Breach livestream. You can also organize a watch party in your community. To learn more see the Facebook event and the Repairers of the Breach website.