Damning Audit of US Poverty Fuels New Poor People's Campaign

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http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/44315-damning-audit-of-us-poverty-fuels-new-poor-people-s-campaign


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Influenced by their Fusionist forefathers and foremothers, Moral Monday protesters led the effort that successfully voted North Carolina's extremist governor out of office in 2016, making him the only incumbent Republican governor who was unable to ride the Trump wave. The Moral Monday movement showed the country what can happen when people of diverse identities and backgrounds come together as a force for change.

Now Barber has joined forces with Rev. Liz Theoharis of the Kairos Center to lead the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. The campaign, which was inspired by the anti-poverty work Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was engaged in before his assassination 50 years ago, will bring together diverse coalitions of activists from North Carolina and at least 40 other states to confront public policies that hurt the most vulnerable. From Mother's Day until June 23, activists will engage in 40 days of direct action challenging systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, and the war economy.

The effort will be informed by "The Souls of Poor Folk," an audit of poverty in America 50 years after the original Poor People's campaign was launched. The audit was produced by the Institute for Policy Studies along with the Kairos Center and Repairers of the Breach, a nonprofit led by Barber.

The audit found that more than 40.6 million Americans subsist below the poverty line and nearly half of the country's population cannot afford a $400 emergency. It also found that many Americans -- particularly those who live in the South -- are targeted by public policies that deprive them of political power and basic human rights.

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'We will continue to resist.' 5 years after first Moral Monday, their fight continues.

https://www.google.com/amp/amp.newsobserver.com/latest-news/article210185774.html

April 30, 2018 08:49 PM
RALEIGH
Five years have passed since the birth of the Moral Monday protest movement.

Seventeen people, diverse in age and backgrounds, were among the earliest to be arrested. They were upset with the direction that Republicans newly in charge of the General Assembly and governor’s office were taking North Carolina.

They were united in dissent and a voice that grew louder and louder in its first year, resulting in more than 1,000 arrests at weekly demonstrations outside the halls of power where lawmakers charged a new, right-leaning political course for North Carolina.

On Monday, five years and a day after those 17 people were arrested, the Rev. T. Anthony Spearman, the new head of the state NAACP and one of the 17 arrested in 2013, rallied 100 or so people on Halifax Mall gathered for the anniversary.

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