Activists Rekindle Martin Luther King’s Work Helping Those Living In Poverty

By Luke Miller,

The Poor People’s Campaign is a revival of a movement led by activist Martin Luther King Jr.

The movement was revived in 2017 and has reached out to communities in more than 30 states across this nation.

The campaign is split into 2 parts, the first is a “Declaration of Fundamental Rights and Poor People’s Moral Agenda” (quotes are taken from www.poorpeoplescampaign.org)

• Systemic Racism “Did you know that there are fewer voting rights in 2018 than there were 50 years ago when the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were passed?”
• Poverty and Inequality “Did you know that while the U.S. economy has grown 18-fold in the past 50 years, wealth inequality has expanded, the costs of living have increased, and social programs have been restructured and cut dramatically?”
• Ecological Devastation “Did you know 13.8 million U.S. households cannot afford water?”
• War Economy and Militarism “Did you know that currently 53 cents of every federal discretionary dollar goes to military spending and only 15 cents is spent on anti-poverty programs?”
• National Morality “Did you know that thousands of people die every year from anti-poor policies, while an extremist religious and Christian nationalist agenda deliberately diverts attention from the key issues and challenges facing the majority of Americans?”

The second part is the education of History and Moral Justification. This part of the demands brought by the group works to educate into the history of the movement and has a “National Call for Moral Revival”

The group said: We have met with tens of thousands of people, witnessing the strength of their moral courage in trying times. We have gathered testimonies from hundreds of poor people and we have chronicled their demands for a better society. The following moral agenda is drawn from this deep engagement and commitment to these struggles of the poor and dispossessed. It is also grounded in an empirical assessment of how we have come to this point today. The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America report reveals how the evils of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy and militarism are persistent, pervasive, and perpetuated by a distorted moral narrative that must be challenged.

We must stop the attention violence that refuses to see these injustices and acknowledge the human and economic costs of inequality. We believe that when decent people see the faces and facts that the Souls of Poor Folk Audit presents, they will be moved deeply in their conscience to change things. When confronted with the undeniable truth of unconscionable cruelty to our fellow human beings, we must join the ranks of those who are determined not to rest until justice and equality are a reality for all.

Image credit: AJ+