Poor Peoples Assembly June 20th
Poor and low-income people from throughout the country will testify about their experiences of systemic poverty, systemic racism, the war economy, ecological devastation and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism. They will be introduced by religious figures such as Rev. Dr. Bernice King, CEO of the King Center; Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry; Rev. Terri Hord Owens, the first black woman to lead the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); and Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Artists and activists also will introduce testifiers, including Erika Alexander, David Oyelowo, Danny Glover, Wanda Sykes, Jane Fonda, Debra Messing and former Vice President Al Gore. Union leaders including SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, AFSCME President Lee Saunders, SEIU 1199 President George Gresham and Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants in the Communications Workers of America, also are part of the program.
The assembly will be streamed on major TV and radio networks, as well as at june2020.org.
Poor and low-income people from throughout the country will testify about their experiences of systemic poverty, systemic racism, the war economy, ecological devastation and the false moral narrative of religious nationalism. They will be introduced by religious figures such as Rev. Dr. Bernice King, CEO of the King Center; Episcopal Bishop Michael Curry; Rev. Terri Hord Owens, the first black woman to lead the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); and Rabbi Jonah Dov Pesner, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. Artists and activists also will introduce testifiers, including Erika Alexander, David Oyelowo, Danny Glover, Wanda Sykes, Jane Fonda, Debra Messing and former Vice President Al Gore. Union leaders including SEIU President Mary Kay Henry, AFSCME President Lee Saunders, SEIU 1199 President George Gresham and Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants in the Communications Workers of America, also are part of the program.
The assembly will be streamed on major TV and radio networks, as well as at june2020.org.
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is co-chaired by
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II of Repairers of the Breach and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center, who will frame the day’s purpose. Rev. Barber will give a call to action after all the testimony, and Rev. Theoharis will challenge religious nationalism. The campaign has the support of 20 national religious bodies, 16 labor unions and over 200 national organizations. See full partner list here.
WHEN: 10 a.m. and 6 p.m., Saturday, June 20th, and 6 p.m. Sunday, June 21st. All times Eastern.
WHERE: This online gathering will be streamed at june2020.org as well as on major TV and radio networks, and will include participants from more than 40 states.
WHY: More than 140 million poor and low-income people live in the United States, or 43% of the country’s population and 700 people die each day from poverty — and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, with organizing committees in 45 states, is building a moral fusion movement to address the five interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and militarism and a distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism, to implement its Moral Agenda, based on years of policy research and budgetary analysis, and to uphold demands on systemic racism.
Among the impacted people who will speak are service workers from the Midwest who have worked through the pandemic without PPE; a Kansas farm couple fighting for local health care; a coal miner from Appalachia; mothers who have lost children due to lack of health care, residents of Cancer Alley in Louisiana, and an Apache elder who is petitioning the federal government to stop a corporation from destroying a sacred site in Arizona.
