January 6, 2020

Georgia Senate victories show power of new Southern strategy & moral fusion organizing

Statement from Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II:

The victories of Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in the Georgia Senate races show what happens when candidates run on a platform to address health care, living wages, voting rights and racism. We can build fusion political coalitions in the South that can overcome manufactured divisions and claims of socialism, the use of racial code words and trickle-down economics.

Georgia doesn’t have to be an anomaly. Like the rest of the South, it was never really a red state. Instead, it was a state where Black, brown and white voters had not been organized into a moral fusion movement. That is changing with these elections. 

A look inside the numbers also will show that the voices and votes of poor and low-income people factored strongly into these victories. If the Democrats use the power that the voters have given to them, then the election of Rev. Warnock and Ossoff can change the Senate into a place where the people are supported instead of corporations.

The work of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and pushing of our agenda must continue, and these election results give us great hope for legislative movement.

We will continue to organize and mobilize around the issues that matter to the more than 140 million poor and low-income people in this country, including a living wage, healthcare for all, union rights and a clean environment. We will continue to call on politicians to support policies that lift from the bottom up and to not engage in the falsehood of a trickle-down economy.

Statement from Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis:

The Georgia Senate Runoff is yet another confirmation of the power of poor and low-income, Black, brown, native and white voters voting for an agenda of living wages, health care, racial and economic justice.

The victories of Rev. Dr. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff will be historic — Warnock will be the first African American Senator from Georgia, the 11th from the nation, including just three from the South; Ossoff, the first Jewish senator from Georgia and the South and the youngest since Joe Biden. Both campaigned on just stimulus, expanding healthcare and housing.

Their election is a repudiation of voter suppression and attempts to degrade and divide voters by race and geography. It shows what is possible when a fusion movement of people comes together and exercises democracy, upholds the principles of the rights of all to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and resists the lies of scarcity and austerity.

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival reached out to hundreds of thousands of poor and low-income Georgia voters before the run off. Leaders from Georgia connected with voters across the state, especially in small towns and rural areas, who need and demand change. We will continue to organize around an agenda that raises wages, expands health care, and champions the human rights of all throughout Georgia, the South, and the entire nation.

CONTACT:
Martha Waggoner:  [email protected] | 919-295-0802