September 28, 2020
VISUALS: Clergy, including ministers, rabbis and imams, wearing black clothing, religious garb and sandwich board signs as they protest and pray.
WHAT: “Remember Ruth & Breonna: Rise Up & Vote,” a march and pray-in in Washington, D.C., to remember U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died Sept. 18, and Breonna Taylor, whom police killed in her home in Kentucky in March.
WHO: 100 leaders of various faiths including Rev. Dr. William Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
WHEN: Noon Eastern/9 a.m. Pacific Tuesday, Sept. 29
WHERE: Faith leaders will gather at the U.S. Supreme Court and march silently to the Senate office buildings, where they will hold a pray-in and speak about why we should honor these two women by voting as if our lives depend on it — because they do. You can also join online at www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/livestream.
WHY: In a time of an immoral justice system, from the U.S. Supreme Court nomination process down to the local courts and law enforcement, faith leaders march to pronounce judgement on the sin of the Senate under Mitch McConnell and say: We must vote. We must use the power of our vote to save our democracy from the clutches of a U.S. Senate that plans to ram through a Supreme Court nominee to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the closing weeks of Trump’s presidency. And we must use the power of our vote to say no more to police killings of innocent people that go unanswered as in the death of Breonna Taylor, shot and killed by police.
BACKGROUND: The Poor People’s Campaign has released a groundbreaking report titled “Unleashing the Power of Poor and Low-Income Americans: Changing the Political Landscape.” The report shows that poor and low-income people can change the political calculus of this nation in the presidential race in 15 states and 16 U.S. Senate races with just a small uptick in voting. More than 140 million poor and low-income people live in the United States, or 43% of the country’s population, 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. Our demands are reflected in our Jubilee Platform.
For additional information: poorpeoplescampaign.org https://youtu.be/PmOjcUoDhEs
Twitter: @unitethepoor / Instagram: @poorpeoplescampaign / Facebook: @ANewPPC
CONTACTS:
Martha Waggoner: [email protected]
Zillah Wesley (on the ground in Washington): [email protected]