We Won't Be Silent Anymore! Updates from the PPC

Jan Corderman, Carolyn Caponi, Mary Walker, Darien De Lu, Eileen Kurkoski. PPC 6/18/22.

By Emily Keel
WILPF Triangle Branch, WILPF-PPC Liaison

After months of preparation, WILPF had a wonderful turnout at the Poor People's Campaign rally on June 18. I offer sincere thanks to those who flew across the country, who drove in a car for 16 hours each way, rode a bus for 8 hours, or came by train. Your support of the campaign contributed to attendance of the tens of thousands of people and the power we are gathering to bring a moral change in our nation. 

If you have not viewed the recording of the rally, you can do so at this link. Some highlights include Rev Dr. Bernice King at 2 hours 47 minutes, and Dr. Cornel West at 4 hours 20 minutes. Peoples Dispatch also offers a nice summary of the event.

Thirty eight WILPF members attended the rally and several of us attended associated events. Code Pink organized a peace group gathering which included at least four WILPF members. They will be reporting back to us with their plans for accelerating the pressure to ban nuclear weapons and to curtail the military industry's ever-increasing spending. If you would like to join in the sessions, please contact me at ppc-comm@wilpfus.org and I will connect you.

Heartfelt thanks to the following who attended: Brenda Hines, Lib Hutchby, Tana Hartmann, Mary Jenne, Liz Evans, Libby Johnson, Anne Casebaum, Gann Herman, Emily Keel (all from Triangle); Cynthia Roberts, Lee Hulquist, Jan Corderman, Dianne Blais, Darien De Lu, Tina Shelton, Pam Albright, Rande Webster, Rowan Fairgrove, Sylvia Metzler, Eileen Kurkoski, Ana Santoya, Shilpa Pandey, George Friday, Vicki Elson, Mary Caponi, Carolyn Walker, Laurie Jones, Martha Hart, Laura Dewey, Dorothy Van Soest, Jackie Cabasso, Lucy Murphy.   Thanks also to several from the Triad and Southern Piedmont branches who attended. The attendance of each was a statement of firm commitment and I hope I did not omit anyone.  

On July 5, we held yet another zoom meeting to plan the way forward in our partnership with the PPC, which will be especially vital over the remainder of this year. Working to educate people about the election and turning people out to vote must be the prime consideration. Our solidarity committee on voting is developing a toolkit to inform that process.  Additionally, each branch is to review the campaign’s bulletin 7 Steps Before the Midterms to ascertain what each of us feels we can do to add to the power of this movement.  

We were reminded by Gann Herman, NC organizing committee member, that the PPC will not tell us what to do but expects that we will respond in our own communities to what we feel is important. Our work ahead is to show up for our own neighbors with a willingness to listen, to feel and to act in support of and at the direction of affected people. We are going through very difficult times in this nation and it is up to all of us to come together. As long as there are 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this country and we know it does not have to be this way, WILPF won’t be silent anymore!

Emily Keel
ppc-comm@wilpfus.org