On Saturday, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival will host the largest digital gathering of poor and low-income people in this nation’s history.
Streaming/Broadcasting Available in All Formats
What: Poor and low-income people from throughout the country will testify about their experiences of systemic poverty, systemic racism, the war economy, ecological devastation, and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism. They will be introduced by religious figures such as Rev. Dr. Bernice King, CEO of the King Center; Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry; Rev. Terri Hord Owens, the first black woman to lead the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); and Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Artists and activists also will introduce testifiers, including Erika Alexander, David Oyelowo, Danny Glover, Wanda Sykes, Jane Fonda, Debra Messing, and former Vice President Al Gore. Union leaders including SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, AFSCME President Lee Saunders, SEIU 1199 President George Gresham, and Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants in the Communications. Workers of America, also are part of the program.
The assembly will be streamed on major TV and radio networks, as well as at june2020.org.
*A virtual pressroom will be set up for reporters’ questions on June 20th. Media can register for it here.
**The event will be open captioned with ASL and Spanish interpretation, all of which will be accessible at june2020.org
Who: The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is co-chaired by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II of Repairers of the Breach and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center, who will frame the day’s purpose. Rev. Barber will give a call to action after all the testimony, and Rev. Theoharis will challenge religious nationalism. The campaign has the support of 20 national religious bodies, 16 labor unions, and over 200 national organizations. See full partner list here.
When: 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., Saturday, June 20th, and 6 p.m. Sunday, June 21st. All times Eastern.
Where: This online gathering will be streamed at june2020.org as well as on major TV and radio networks, and will include participants from more than 40 states.
Why: More than 140 million poor and low-income people live in the United States, or 43% of the country’s population and 700 people die each day from poverty — and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, with organizing committees in 45 states, is building a moral fusion movement to address the five interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and militarism and a distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism, to implement its Moral Agenda, based on years of policy research and budgetary analysis, and to uphold demands on systemic racism. Among the impacted people who will speak are service workers from the Midwest who have worked through the pandemic without PPE; a Kansas farm couple fighting for local health care; a coal miner from Appalachia; mothers who have lost children due to lack of health care, residents of Cancer Alley in Louisiana, and an Apache elder who is petitioning the federal government to stop a corporation from destroying a sacred site in Arizona.
As the nation rightfully continues protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death, the campaign upholds that public policy continues to disproportionately kill people of color and poor and low-income people across the country and that a budget is not simply an allocation of funds, but is a moral document that reflects social values. This digital mass assembly will call for poor and low-income people to build power and register to vote like never before. It presents an opportunity for all people to join together in a united call for justice from wherever they are.
We urge all members of Congress, all governors, the White House administration and both presidential candidates to watch the program to enlighten themselves about the lives of poor and low-income people in this nation and the need for a stimulus bill that helps people from the bottom up.
Background
In 1968, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and many others launched the Poor People’s Campaign, seeking to build a broad, fusion movement that could unite poor and impacted communities across the country, and organize a “revolution of values” in the United States. In 2018, that call was picked up once again by the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
