Poor People's Campaign Targets Poverty for Kickoff

By CASH MICHAELS

In 39 state capitols Monday – from Raleigh, NC to Sacramento, California - protestors holding signs saying, “Systematic Racism is Immoral, and “Fight Poverty, Not the Poor,” vowed to steer the nation and public policy back towards caring about the least of us.

Organizers called it “the most expansive wave of nonviolent civil disobedience in U.S. history.”

Then, to emphasize the point, protestors committed deliberate “direct acts” of civil disobedience, and promised more of the same over the upcoming six-week period, to put the spotlight on issues such as racial and economic injustice, militarism, and the need for affordable health care.

The North Carolina “Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival,” launched May 14th with approximately 250 demonstrators gathered in Bicentennial Mall across from the NC Legislative Building in downtown Raleigh, in over 90 degree heat, demanding sweeping changes in policies addressing poverty, and education.

According to organizers, “53 people were cited for impeding the flow of traffic in front of the North Carolina General Assembly” on Jones Street (The Raleigh Police Dept. confirmed 49 people were issued citations for the same misdemeanor offense).

In Washington, D.C., former NCNAACP Pres. Rev. Dr. William Barber, and Rev. Liz Theoharis, the co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign, were arrested along with hundreds of other demonstrators from across the United States. In each participating state, the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s 1968 unfinished Poor People’s Campaign was invoked, along with a vow to this time, see it to the end.

“We’re living in an impoverished democracy, Rev. Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach, a sponsoring social justice organization, said. “People across the country are standing up against the lie of scarcity. We know that in the richest country in the world, there is no reason for children to go hungry, for the sick to be denied health care, and for citizens to have their votes suppressed.”

Those who spoke Monday at the Poor People’s Campaign rally in Raleigh’s Bicentennial Plaza called for an end to repressive public policies coming from the Republican-led NC General Assembly, and the Trump Administration in Washington, D.C..

When the time for direct action came, designated protestors locked arms, and left the Bicentennial Plaza, walking to Jones Street in front of the Legislative Building. There, under the watchful eye of State Capitol, and later Raleigh Police, participants – Black, White, young, old, and even handicapped - formed a large circle in the street, and with the exception of moving to a shaded area under a tree, stayed in the street with their arms locked, singing and chanting.

As Raleigh Police officers asked each one to move out of the street, and they refused, they were taken, without force or handcuffs, out of the line, and walked beyond the police lines to waiting patrol cars, where they were given written citations.

North Carolina organizers promise to repeat again next Monday, May 21st, when the Poor People’s Campaign addresses racism and immigration.