Press release from Lucy Christopher:
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, is sponsoring a Town Hall on Saturday March 24th from 3:00-5:00 pm at the Community Table, 23 Central Street in Sylva, NC. The campaign originated in December 1967, and was the vision of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated before he was able to organize and carry out his stated mission of changing public policies that keep people in poverty. Dr. Ralph Abernathy led the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign.
The current national campaign is organized by North Carolina’s Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, former president of the NC NAACP and current head of Repairers of the Breach, and by Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, of the Kairos Center at Union Theological Seminary in New York. It is rooted in principles that include commitments: to lifting up and deepening the leadership of those most affected by systemic racism; to ending poverty, the war economy and ecological devastation; to building unity across lines of division, and to non-violence.
The movement recognizes the need to organize at the state and local level, since many of the most regressive policies are being passed at the state level and will have long and lasting effect. The campaign’s initial actions are slated to begin on Mother’s Day and last 40 days; they will include civil disobedience, education about issues of poverty, contact with elected officials and protest rallies.
The Town Hall in Sylva will include testimonies from people whose lives are impacted by poverty; they will focus on issues such as health care, hunger, the environment and justice reform.
Come learn how to participate in and support the Poor People’s Campaign–what the campaign is all about and how poverty affects people and their communities. The event is free and open to the public.
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