Rev. Dr. Barber officially announced his transition to join the leadership of the New Poor People’s Campaign last week at a press conference held at Davie Street Presbyterian Church:
Rev. Barber spoke more about the new development in an interview with Joy Reid on MSNBC. Rev. Barber also outlined his prophetic conviction that we need a New Poor People’s Campaign in an essay for ThinkProgress, where he wrote:
Fifty years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King called for a “revolution of values” in America, inviting people who had been divided to stand together against the “triplets of evil” — militarism, racism, and economic injustice — to insist that people need not die from poverty in the richest nation to ever exist. Poor people in communities across America — black, white, brown and Native — responded by building a Poor People’s Campaign that would demand a Marshall Plan for America’s poor.
This is the true legacy of religious freedom in America.
Dr. King, along with many other impacted people and moral leaders in the Poor People’s Campaign of 1967/68, began an effort to build a broad, fusion coalition that would audit America, demanding an accounting of promissory notes that had been returned marked “insufficient funds.” We have not finished their work. Though Trump’s presidency is the culmination of a violent backlash against the Second Reconstruction that Dr. King and many others led, the future of our democracy depends on us completing the work of a Third Reconstruction today.
This is why I hear the Spirit calling us to build a new Poor People’s Campaign.
The Kairos Center’s co-director, Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, was present at the press conference. She had this to say about the historic step that Rev. Barber is taking to join the growing leadership of the New Poor People’s Campaign:
These are difficult and dangerous days. 1 in 2 Americans are poor or low-income; immigrants, Muslims, the homeless, youth are under attack; 28 million people will lose their health care under Trumpcare; 65 million workers make less than $15/hour and some states are actually lowering their minimum wages; there are millions living without clean water and sanitation services; voting rights are being suppressed; wars are waging across the world and intensifying.
These and many other crises mean it is urgent we build a Poor People’s Campaign today. It’s important to spread some of the victories you all have been winning in NC across the country.
As Rev. Dr. King said as he was building the 1967-68 Poor People’s Campaign, “Disinherited people all over the world are bleeding to death from deep social and economic wounds. They need brigades of ambulance drivers who will have to ignore the red lights of the present system until the emergency is solved.”
Rev. Dr. Barber has answered the call to help lead brigades of ambulance drivers to heal the deep wounds of racism, militarism, and poverty. He has taken up the call to finish the unfinished business of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King and build a Poor People’s Campaign for today.
Grassroots impacted leaders from El Paso, Texas, Plaquemine Parish, Louisiana, Aberdeen, Washington, Lowdnes County, Alabama, Flint, Michigan, Elkhart, Indiana, Burlington, Vermont, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Kansas City, Missouri, Marks, MS, Charleston, SC, Salinas, CA, Pine Ridge Reservation and so many places across the country are excited to work side by side with you, Rev. Barber, as you help lead the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival. It’s time for a revolution of values. The Poor People’s Campaign is on! Forward Together Not One Step Back!
For more on Rev. Dr. Barber’s powerful leadership in the struggle to end poverty, watch the first episode of America Will Be, the new documentary film series produced by filmmaker Dara Kell in partnership with the Kairos Center. Watch a short clip of Rev. Dr. Barber speaking about hope and the New Poor People’s Campaign below:
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