A Message from The Poor People's Campaign
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is an organization committed to reviving the movement of Martin Luther King, Jr. to demand economic and racial justice for the poor of America.
In honor of Martin Luther King Day, they have issued a set of demands to elected representatives that promote economic justice.
Today, we turn away from the false emergencies peddled by Trump -- and enabled by Senate leadership -- to the real emergencies that have been ongoing for the past months, years, and decades. Demand change!
“The emergency we now face is economic, and it is a desperate and worsening situation. The dispossessed of this nation — the poor, both white and Negro — live in a cruelly unjust society. They must organize a revolution against the injustice, not against the lives of the persons who are their fellow citizens, but against the structures through which the society is refusing to take means which have been called for, and which are at hand, to lift the load of poverty. There are millions of poor people in this country who have very little, or even nothing, to lose. If they can be helped to take action together, they will do so with a freedom and a power that will be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life.” --(Martin Luther King Jr., 1967)
Our growing movement of poor folks is that new and unsettling force. We’ve organized rallies. Flooded state capitols. Made thousands of calls. Now, on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we’re living up to his words with action by delivering the Campaign’s full demands to each and every state lawmaker.
Let’s remind our leaders that Dr. King called on us to fight poverty, racism, militarism and the structures and systems that keep them going. He called on us to bring about a revolution of values.
There is no time to waste. Already this year, we have been canvassing, organizing hearings, speaking out against these conditions and building power in over 40 states. We’re going from Cancer Alley in Louisiana to Paradise, California, from Little Rock, Arkansas to Albany, New York, and elsewhere, delivering our demands and putting our elected representatives on notice: We will not be silent anymore!
In honor of Dr. King, send our demands to your Governor and State Representatives.
They have tried to shut us out, but they can't; they have tried to shut us up, but they can't. We are here, we are coming back, bigger and bolder than we were in 2018, preparing to come back to D.C. in June. Get ready!
Forward together, not one step back,
Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II and Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis
President of Repairers of the Breach & Director of the Kairos Center
Co-Chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
In honor of Dr. King, send our demands to your Governor and State Representatives.