Partnering with the Poor People’s Campaign Provides Hope

The Poor People’s Campaign contingent in this year’s Moral Movement March in Raleigh, NC, led by the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chair of the campaign. Many Triangle Branch members participated, including Lucy Lewis, who said it was a “Great example of the multi-racial, intersectional, values-based statewide coalition we are continuing to build.”

By Mary Bricker-Jenkins
Chair, Poor People’s Campaign Ad Hoc Committee

WILPF US has endorsed and is partnering with the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

But why?

Is it the nostalgia for the heady, hard won victories of the civil rights movement? The certainty that, despite those, racism sears the soul of the nation? Empathy for the rapidly increasing numbers of poor and dispossessed? Desperation over the possibility that our grandchildren’s planet will be a wasteland? Frustration and fear that endless US war-making is the new normal?

Perhaps it’s all of these—and none of these. Perhaps this campaign has given us hope, a hope grounded in some very concrete realities.

For one thing, the campaign acknowledges the validity of the many issues and “silos” we care so deeply about, but moves forward with a fusion approach to organizing and acting: “Forward together!  Not one step back!”

That in turn is grounded in an analysis of the common roots of the conditions we seek to change—poverty, militarism, racism, and environmental devastation—common roots revealed in the lived experience of those directly affected. Grounding the campaign in people’s direct experience yields information and solutions where formal abstractions fail.

And then there’s an achievable goal: to change the national conversation. According to the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the campaign, “If the conversation is wrong, the agenda will be wrong. We aim to change the national conversation.” If that seems too modest, consider that this is a campaign that is intended to build a movement—one that will get to the bottom of things. As Martin Luther King Jr. urged in his Riverside Church sermon, “A Time to Break Silence”:

“On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.”

Another wellspring of hope is the vision of 40 days of massive, coordinated nonviolent civil disobedience. Between Mother’s Day on May 13, 2018, and the Summer Solstice on June 21, we are asked to participate in events in our home states and localities, and in Washington, DC.

It is not necessary to do CD to be a part of the events and the campaign; the participation of each of us at any level and in any way will build the campaign. But it is important to pledge your support and state your intended level of involvement here. Much additional information about the campaign is available there and also at the partner organization’s website.

Finally, why WILPF?

Preparing to write this eNews item, I revisited the WILPF-US home page. Here is our vision statement:

WILPF envisions a transformed world at peace, where there is racial, social, and economic justice for all people everywhere—a world in which:

• The needs of all people are met in a fair and equitable manner
• All people equally participate in making the decisions that affect them
• The interconnected web of life is acknowledged and celebrated in diverse ways and communities
• Human societies are designed and organized for sustainable existence

It seems that joining the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival provides a splendid opportunity for traveling the Jericho road to a realization of this vision.

Inset Credits: art.poorpeoplescampaign.org (marchers); Justseeds Collective (sign).