Two Lessons from the Poor People’s Campaign Rally
Growing up, I insisted Mom tell me about the 1960s, a time, in my young mind, full of protests, afros, bullhorns, and raised fists. If I closed my eyes long enough, the inhale of revolution and exhale of collective solidarity felt palpable - especially when I saw photos from that era, or documentaries like Eyes on the Prize. This unwillingness to accept the status quo now felt lost in a sea of sitcoms, absent from my day-to-day experiences as an 80s/ 90s kid. I mean, sure, there were hip-hop artists calling out inequality like Public Enemy, Arrested Development and Tupac (“They got money for wars but can’t feed the poor…”), but there didn’t seem to be a consistent mobilization of folks taking to the streets.
Even at that young age, I sensed we were treated differently because of the color of our skin, and that access to money determined whether you lived with ease, or struggled endlessly. For this reason, I often wondered, how can people ignore this stuff? Why aren’t they out in the street like the 1960s? Maybe, I would often say to my Mom, I was born in the wrong time? These don’t feel like my people. She assured me God doesn’t make mistakes. Grown-ups, I thought, walking away, shaking my head, they think they know it all.
Fast forward to 2011 with Occupy Wall Street (when many of us took to the streets to call out economic inequality: “We are the 99%), a few years later in the wake of rising racial violence, we screamed “Black Lives Matter” for Trayvon Martin, murdered before his 18th birthday by a man claiming to keep his neighborhood “safe.” I held one fist in the air, and another on my belly as our daughter Nai swirled around in my stomach, determined to work towards a shift in this country.
“There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve.”
-Miroslav Volf
Rev. Amanda (from my worship home, Middle Church) and I, such a beautiful soul! You can check her work out at Raising Imagination and listen to our interview with her from last year.
I found the work of Rev. William Barber, Liz Theo Harris and the Poor People’s Campaign, not too long after starting Pray with our Feet. Their words and actions, the collective call they consistently lifted up, reminded me there were other Christians on the front lines, who didn't just read the Bible, but sought to embody it’s teachings in their everyday lives.
Several months ago, when I learned about the Poor People’s Campaign Rally on June 18 in Washington D.C., I knew I had to attend - and not virtually (as I have done for other actions), but in person, standing in the presence of others pushing for fundamental changes in this country as it relates to economic inequality, police violence, the false ideology of white supremacy, climate change, lack of affordable health care and more. All these weeks later, it’s an experience I am still sitting with, but two core lessons have emerged which I’m sharing with you all:
Organize, Organize, and Organize Some More: It’s not enough to react to crisis after crisis, we have to constantly organize to push for the world we envision. And this kind of ongoing organization requires understanding exactly what we are working towards. For this reason, we didn’t march, we stood in one place and heard the demands being raised about everything from the climate crisis to voting rights, racial violence and systemic racism, economic inequality (there are 140 million poor and low wealth people in the U.S. today), etc.
The demands of from this rally (you can hear at 3:03 of the video), which Rev. Barber laid out, some of which include: U.S. congresspersons acknowledging the reality and pain of 140 million poor and low wealth people, and denying the scope inequality by saying there are only 39 million poor and low wealth people, every congressperson supporting legislation which commits to a
3rd Reconstruction agenda, along with a White House summit on poverty, among other calls to action. Rev. Barber says the campaign “plans to return in September, and bring 5,000 poor and low wealth people, along with faith leaders and economists, to walk the halls of Congress in non-violent direct action.” This clarity and focus, particularly in our era of distraction and distorted facts, is essential.
Young girl with a Poor People’s Campaign rally sign: “Lift from the Bottom, Everybody Rises””
Photo Credit: Emelda De Coteau
“The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has developed out of years of organizing across the United States. In communities across this land, people impacted by systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and our distorted moral narrative have said the same thing: “We want to be free! We need a Poor People’s Campaign! We need a Moral Revival to make this country great for so many for whom it has not yet been.” This call echoes the cries of the prophets throughout the ages to stand up for justice, righteousness and the dignity of all,” as noted on campaign’s website.
There are chapters of the Poor People’s Campaign in every state where folks can take action year round. Because it’s not enough to tolerate suffering, we must act, and sustained action requires collective organization - as believers, it is our moral imperative (Proverbs 31: 8-9). Right-wing extremists, now fully indoctrinated into Trumpism, are constantly organizing all over this country - countering them requires we remain focused on building our power through mass organization.
Kwame Ture once said in a lecture: “Since we are a people who are instinctively ready to respond against acts of injustice, any time there’s one little act of injustice, we can blow it up and we will find people who will come and make some mass demonstration around it. ‘Ms Sally lost her job, let’s rally, she’ll get her job back.’ People will come and rally. ‘So and so got kicked out of school because the teachers unjust.’ Unjust, the people will come and rally. They will come to rally at issues.
And this is what mobilization does, it mobilizes people around issues. Those of us who are revolutionary are not concerned with issues, we are concerned with the system. The difference must be properly understood. The difference must be properly understood. Mobilization usually leads to reform action, not to revolutionary action.”
Everybody’s Story Matters: Even in social justice and faith circles, there is a tendency to elevate voices of “leaders” above the community. Yet, as followers of Christ and believers, we are called to sit and listen to the forgotten, marginalized, those society has cast aside. This is how we cultivate spaces where everybody’s story matters - not just the perspectives of a few. It is also how we divest from a hierarchal model which has its root in capitalist system which ranks some as worthy and others as unworthy based on superficial markers of value - education level, job title, etc.
Alongside the speeches of Dr. Bernice King, Ms. LaTosha Brown (Black Voters Matter), and Dr. Cornel West, we heard the stories of multiple folks, part of Poor People’s Campaign chapters across this country, people like Angela M., the chair of the Poor People’s campaign in Nebraska, who is struggling with chronic pain doctors cannot explain; her husband, a veteran, lives with multiple health challenge, including PTSD and other ailments connected to his service in the military. They are now dealing with $20,000 in debt to the VA.
At one point in the rally, when chatter in the crowd rose, Rev. Barber reminded us we were there to listen - not surrender to distraction, and drown out the voices of those on stage. No, we came to engage in the sacred act of listening to another’s lived experiences; this is how we break down the walls of separation, and build bridges across our differences.
I hear the brilliant writer and thinker Audre Lorde’s words as I write: “What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language.”
Our voices must rise as a stedfast chorus of resistance, challenging America with this reminder: It’s not enough to preach freedom, but practice exclusion.
Action Steps -
Visit the Poor People’s Campaign website and learn about their work
Watch the June 18th rally in Washington, D.C.
Check out the book, We Cry Justice: Reading the Bible with the Poor People's Campaign (virtual book talk)
Member of Raging Grannies International, a social justice org.
Photo Credit: Emelda De Coteau