February 1, 2021
WHAT: On the anniversary of the start of the sit-in movement on February 1, 1960, in Greensboro, North Carolina, the Poor People’s Campaign will launch a new series of Moral Mondays to highlight our demands for the first 100 days of the Biden-Harris administration and the new House and Senate. This Monday, we will push Democrats, Republicans and independents to immediately raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, including tipped workers, and to strengthen and expand union rights. We will hold a massive call-in to the offices of Senate leaders Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell as we also demand just COVID relief.
WHO: SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and Saru Jayaraman, president of One Fair Wage, join this Moral Monday, along with former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who is beginning a new role with the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival to focus on our agenda with the Biden-Harris administration. Our national co-chairs, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, will lead the program, titled “To Heal the Nation: Respect Us, Protect Us.” Pamela Garrison, a house cleaner from West Virginia who has lost work since the pandemic struck, will speak as well as a home care worker from Virginia, a pastor from Montana and a tipped worker from New York City.
WHEN: 3:30 p.m. ET / 12:30pm PT Monday, Feb. 1.
WHERE: Online at https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/livestream/
WHY: Regardless of who’s in power, we must take action in support of the agenda of the poor and low-income people across this country, including the 14 Policy Priorities to Heal the Nation: A Moral and Economic Agenda for the First 100 Days. Recent events only embolden our resolve to put an end to policies that leave out the poor and challenge at every turn the narrative that blames poverty on the poor, a narrative with bipartisan support. As we’ve said since launching this campaign, this is not about right vs. left, but about right vs. wrong.
**The event will be ASL interpreted and open captioned.
BACKGROUND: Nationally, 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: https://www.facebook.com/ANewPPC
CONTACT:
Martha Waggoner: [email protected] | 919-295-0802