As the nation prepares to mark Martin Luther King Day next week, modern day civil rights leaders have launched a new Poor People’s Campaign, inspired by the historic 1968 action led by King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In the coming months, organizers are planning six weeks of direct action at statehouses across the country and the U.S. Capitol to call attention to systemic racism, poverty, the war economy and ecological devastation.
Reverend William Barber talking:
In January, on the 5th of January, we actually launched, after traveling to 15 states, doing regional trainings, organizing a thousand people in 25 states, District of Columbia, that have committed to do direct action civil disobedience training, preparing for voter registration, to launch a movement. We have black, we have white, we have brown, young, old, gay, straight, Jewish, Muslim, Christians, people of faith, people not of faith, who are coming together, 50 years later, Amy. And one of the things we’re doing is we’re writing something called “The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America 50 Years Later.” (W.E.B. Du Bois’s book.) IPS, Institute for Policy Studies, is helping with activists, and impact the people.
And to talk about the souls of poor folk, because so often the poor are just dismissed. Both parties, we don’t even talk about the poor. We talk middle class, working class, not the poor.
So, 50 years later, we have 30—we have nearly 100 million poor and working poor people in this country, 14 million poor children. Fifty years later, we have less voting rights protection than we had on August 6, 1965. Fifty years later, Strom Thurmond, for instance, filibustered the Voting—filibustered the Civil Rights Act of ’57 for a day. Ryan, McConnell and Boehner have filibustered fixing the Voting Rights Act now for over four years, over 1,700 days. We have tremendous ecological devastation.
And when we look at, for instance, systemic voter suppression and you map it—we’ve done some maps—every state where there’s high voter suppression is also high poverty, denial of healthcare, denial of living wages, denial of labor union rights, attacks on immigrants, attacks on women. So, it’s the same states. And what’s happening, this is not for the poor. It’s with the poor. And it’s launching a multi-year campaign, that we’re beginning now.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove talking:
I was born in 1980, so I wasn’t, you know, very aware of that, either, growing up. I grew up in a Southern Baptist culture that told us, you know, if you’re faithful, you’re Republican. And I wanted to do all that I could for Jesus, so I was trying to make it to the White House. And Jesse Helms referred me to Strom Thurmond, and that’s how I ended up in his office.
But when I got there, I began to realize that something wasn’t quite right, in terms of these values that I was taught of love and justice and concern for the community, and what was happening there, which was really about holding onto power. And I began to realize, you know, what Reverend Barber was saying, that my people in North Carolina and in the South had really been duped, that we—that we were told that this was good for us and good for America and good for the world, and, as a matter of fact, that they were using religion to serve this white supremacist agenda, that really wasn’t very different from what he had advocated in ’48 or in the ’50s and the ’60s, but had changed its language a bit.
And so, I was very grateful for Reverend Barber teaching me that freedom movement history, beginning to realize that there really has been a movement that has pushed for an inclusive democracy in this country since the 19th century and that that effort to reconstruct this country is also very faith-rooted—and we connected because of our faith—and beginning to realize that there were some faith leaders who were using that faith to serve the agenda of this, really, white supremacy campaign.
– Senator Strom Thurmond, speaking in 1948, when he ran for president as a nominee of the pro-segregationist, states’ rights Democratic Party, more popularly known as the Dixiecrats. Thurmond spoke out against Harry Truman’s civil rights platform at the time. “It simply means that it’s another effort on the part of this president to dominate the country by force and to put into effect these uncalled-for and these damnable proposals he has recommended under the guise of so-called civil rights. And I’ll tell you, the American people, from one side or the other, had better wake up and oppose such a program! And if they don’t, the next thing will be a totalitarian state in these United States.”
because if you listen to something like that, as somebody who grew up in the church, you realize that what he’s doing there is preaching. He’s preaching in the public square. And that’s what folks like Richard Spencer are trying to do. They’re trying to bring a vision for for what they want the world to be into the public square, and they’re using religion to do it. And so, I had to learn that whiteness is a religion that people are sold on, and that someone like me, who wants to follow Jesus, needs to be converted, needs to be converted from the religion of whiteness to the religion of Jesus, or many other traditions that are willing to embrace a kind of universal humanity that whiteness can’t embrace.
I think a lot of times when it’s framed as something against what people are doing, they react. Right? Everyone is defensive when you attack what they are. But when you hold forth the invitation to be part of something? You know, this Poor People’s Campaign that we’re talking about now is a movement that is for everyone. You know, Sister Mashyla, who was with us in D.C., came from Washington. She said—she said, “I’m the white trash that they threw out and forgot to burn. But I’m glad to be part of a movement that includes me,” right? And I’m part of that movement, too.
So, I think the constructive vision of the movement is an invitation that many people are beginning to respond to, because they—you know, if you’re a poor person in North Carolina or Alabama, what you have to realize at the end of the day is that these people who say, “Vote for me because I’m a good Christian leader,” are not serving your interests. You don’t have healthcare, you don’t have a living wage, because the same people who say they’re standing up for God and righteousness are, when they’re voting, voting against the interests of poor people, whether you’re black, white, brown or whatever.
Reverend William Barber talking:
it is important for us to remember that the movement for justice has always been biracial. Abolition movement was biracial. Civil rights movement was biracial, triracial sometimes. The first Poor People’s Campaign was not just Dr. King. It was Cesar Chavez. It was Jewish. It was the welfare workers, rights workers. It was Al McSurely, who had organized up in Kentucky.
In some sense, we lost that sense of fusion politics, and that’s what Moral Monday has been about. That’s what this Poor People’s Campaign is about. Not only can we beat a pedophile, the reality is, if we focus on policy—we went to Alabama, and they said we couldn’t organize white ministers to stand up against Roy Moore, not about what he had allegedly done to children, but his policies. And we did—65 percent of the people who got arrested on Moral Monday were white—on policy, saying—
In North Carolina, that’s right, where we were, that I am now. What we’re saying is: Do you have healthcare? You know, when all the Southern states denied healthcare, the people who got elected by voter suppression then used that power to deny healthcare, the majority of the people that are being denied are white. When you don’t have a living wage, the majority of the people that are being affected are white, in raw numbers. There are 8 million more white people poor than there are African-American. We have got to show how people are being played.
And you can’t always look just at a Charlottesville or Strom Thurmond. Remember, they changed that language after ’68. See, Kevin Phillips said, “We can’t talk like that anymore. What we’re going to talk about now is tax cuts and entitlement cuts and forced busing.” That’s the language of the Southern strategy. It changed, but it was the language—it was coded language to say, number one, this is what needs to change for your life to be better. The policies are going to hurt mostly black people and brown people, in a percentage basis, but it’s also going to make people think that black people are the problem. That’s why Trump went to an all-white audience and then talked about black people. You know, what do they have to lose?
One of the things I think we’ve got to—that’s why this movement, we’re saying, we need a Poor People’s Campaign, a national call for a moral revival. We need to reshift the moral narrative. For instance, in this week, King week, I’ve been looking at how people are focusing now on Trump’s, quote-unquote, “mental status.” I think that’s the wrong thing. I mean, I have my own opinions about that. But Dr. King talked about America being sick. See, we’re talking about an individual. We should be examining that tax policy. We should be going down the list, every media station, and looking at how are these policies that these senators and others passed impacting the poor—even the Democrats didn’t talk much about the poor—in those states. We should be talking about the judges he’s trying to put on the—quietly, like the one out of North Carolina, Tom Farr, he’s trying to put on the bench. But the senators are helping; he’s not doing this stuff by himself. If we get fixated on a person, rather than do what Dr. King said, examine the societal moral crisis that creates characters like a Trump, all right, that empowers them, then we’re really in trouble. And we have to deal with the sickness of the society.
Dr. King said, lastly, any society that puts more money in war than it does in social uplift is headed toward spiritual death. When we have an exacerbation of racist voter racism—systemic racism through voter suppression, we have extreme poverty, we have ecological devastation and a war economy and a mixed-up moral narrative, where people can literally run for office, Amy, and look you in the face—”If you elect me, I’m going to take your healthcare”—and get elected—”If you elect me, I’m going to be a racist. If you elect me, I’m going to put hundreds of thousands of people out of the country. If you elect me, I’m going to attack 800,000 students, DACA students. If you”—and say that boldly, we have more than a personality problem. We have a moral crisis. And the only thing that can combat that is a movement that challenges that crisis.
– Senator Lindsey Graham said about Trump “I said he was a xenophobic, race-baiting, religious bigot. I ran out of things to say. He won. Guess what. He’s our president.”
I want to just mention first, Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis, who’s the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, she’s probably looking at that and, like me, saying, “What in the world?” So, you say that’s during the campaign, and you laugh about it. And now the person is in office, and you say they’re doing a good job. And they’ve neither repented in word or in deed. And, in fact, their policies are fine, and you’re supporting the policies.
So here’s the question: If you’re supporting the policies of a racist xenophobe, what does that make you? And that’s why we have to have a policy focus. Remember, it was Lindsey Graham, I believe, and others who came out quickly—Tim Scott—against what happened in Charlottesville. And most politicians will be shrewd enough to do that. That doesn’t mean they aren’t white supremacists and white nationalists. The question is: Mr. Graham, Mr. Scott, who is black—because you can be black and be a white supremacist. At least you can be one who encourages it. And I think you can be, in politics. Where do you stand on restoring the Voting Rights Act? You’ve had four years to do that. You do know that undermining the Voting Rights Act is white nationalism, white supremacy. Where do you stand on healthcare? Because you do know that when you cut healthcare, you hurt a large percentage of African Americans, particularly in your state. Where do you stand on living wages, since 52 percent of African Americans make less than a living wage, and there’s 64 million people that make less than a living wage in this country, less than $15 an hour? Where do you stand on immigration reform? Because, you know, Richard Spencer declares that immigration is the first battle of white supremacists and white nationalists in the modern era. That’s what he has actually said.
So, the question becomes not are you loud like Trump, and are you—do you carry on the antics of Trump. It’s the policies. It’s the policies of white nationalism and white supremacy. And with Mr. Graham, where do you stand on appointing Jeff Sessions, who has a history of standing against voting rights and trying to prosecute people fighting for voting rights? Where do you stand? Your committee, Mr. Graham, the committee you’re on, allowed Thomas Farr to come through, out of North Carolina, to be—to almost make it to the federal bench, who is a known Nazi sympathizer and also a white supremacist, who carried the work of Jesse Helms and who has been behind every voter suppression act in North Carolina.
in the article, I did say Trump, but I also pointed out—and some people missed this—Thomas Farr would have never gotten to the judiciary if it wasn’t for Senator Richard Burr and Senator Tillis from our state—by the way, Senator Tillis was the architect of the voter suppression when he was speaker of the House—who denied two black women, a former Supreme Court justice in North Carolina and a federal prosecutor in North Carolina—they denied them even getting a hearing. They didn’t even allow them to get a hearing. And then, once Trump gets in, they push forward Farr’s name.
So we can’t just lay this reality of what we’re seeing at the feet of Trump. Trump is a symptom of a deeper moral malady. And if he was gone tomorrow or impeached tomorrow, the senators and the House of Representatives and Ryan and McConnell and Graham and all them would still be there. And what we have found, Amy, when we look at them, no matter how crazy they call him or names they call him or anger they get with him, it’s all a front, because at the end of the day, they might disagree with his antics, but they support his agenda.
the first thing that the Trump administration did, with Jeff Sessions, is pull out supporting a case out of North Carolina that the Supreme Court unanimously said was surgical racism. Now think about that. The first thing his AG appointee does is say, “I’m no longer going to protect voting rights.” So he’s turned the attorney general’s office away from protecting voting rights.
We have this fraudulent committee, and they now shut it down, but it’s done its job. They are playing to a certain base. They have sown the theory of voter fraud, and now they’re saying they couldn’t prove it because the lawsuits blocked them. It’s all a game, and we have to unpack it. And we need a movement to do that.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove talking:
I think what’s really important with this Poor People’s Campaign is that it’s local groups all over the country who are coming together, people who are impacted by these issues realizing that the folks in Washington are not serving them. And so, what we can learn from Dr. King and from that whole movement 50 years ago is that a diverse fusion coalition of people coming together and insisting on changing the priorities is what changes the country. We can’t look for moral leadership from Washington. We’ve got to get it from the ground.
Reverend William Barber talking:
First action will be on the Monday after Mother’s Day. We’re going after 25,000 people engaging in civil disobedience over six weeks, to launch a movement. I want to say that: to launch the movement, not end the movement. We’ll come back and talk more about it in days to come.
____
Rev. Dr. William Barber
president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach. He’s the leader of Moral Mondays and the author of Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and the Rise of a New Justice Movement. His upcoming book with Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove is titled Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
minister and director of the School for Conversion in Durham, North Carolina. He is co-author with Rev. William Barber of the upcoming book, Reconstructing the Gospel: Finding Freedom from Slaveholder Religion. His first book co-authored with Rev. Barber is The Third Reconstruction: The Story of Moral Mondays and the Fight to Fulfill Our Nation’s Promise.
— source democracynow.org