Please note that this seminar has been RESCHEDULED for Wednesday, November 23rd at 1pm EST.
On November 24, 1941, the United States Supreme Court, ruling in Edwards v. California, 314 U.S. 160, struck down a depression-era law that made it a criminal offense to bring a poor person into the state of California. Seventy-five years later, the criminalization of the homeless and dispossessed by way of anti-camping, anti-sleeping, anti “loitering” and other measures are making it illegal to be poor in California and other places throughout the country.
On January 15, 2016, the homeless community of Salinas California, facing the imminent destruction of a longstanding, 300-person encampment, formed the Monterey County/Salinas Union of the Homeless. They chose the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to take this historic step. “The time has come,” said Dr. King one year before his assassination, “for us to civilize ourselves by the total, direct and immediate abolition of poverty.”
Salinas is an appropriate battleground for this great cause. It is here that native son John Steinbeck wrote of the homeless camps, the migrant workers and the “Grapes of Wrath”– and was banished for so doing. Steinbeck revealed truths and injustices that resonated across the nation—and are no less true or unjust today.
On Wednesday, November 23rd at 1pm EST, join us for an online seminar celebrating the 75th anniversary of Edwards v. California, exposing the war on the homeless today, and holding up the leaders in Salinas and all over the country fighting for their right to exist and to rest. We’ll be joined by Anthony Prince, Acting General Counsel for the Monterey County/Salinas Homeless Union and Far West Regional Vice-President of the National Lawyers Guild.
Please RSVP by filling out the form below.
Oops! We could not locate your form.