California action comes month before June 18th Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls
Jenna Kyle | [email protected]
Kenia Alcocer (Sp language media)| [email protected]
Martha Waggoner | [email protected]
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival continues its march toward Washington with an in-person march and rally on May 16 in Los Angeles as the PPC demands that this nation adopt policies that lift from the bottom.
The California Poor People’s Campaign will lead a march and rally as part of a Mobilization Tour stop on the way to the Mass Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls on June 18th.
The program will be live streamed here. It will begin at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET at Los Angeles City Hall at 200 N. Spring St. The half-mile march will proceed counterclockwise around Grand Park, passing many key government buildings including the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Field Office, the Hall of Justice, and local county office buildings.
The national co-chairs, Bishop William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, will join poor and impacted testifiers from Los Angeles County, the Bay Area, Washington state, Oregon and Arizona, including a Navajo tribal member, an undocumented mother who lost her spouse to COVID-19 and lack of adequate health and who is unable to make rent for herself and her children, and a healthcare professional with SEIU 721 which just this past week authorized a nearly unanimous strike of its 55,000+ membership base of Los Angeles County workers and who will represent a significant contingent at Monday’s march.
Impacted people from Arizona, Oregon and Washington state also will join California PPC, and busloads of people will come from other cities across California, such as San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego, and the Inland Empire.
The priorities and demands of poor and low-wealth people from these four states will be front and center as they take on the lie of scarcity and put forward a Third Reconstruction agenda that demands, among other things: updating the poverty measure to reflect the real cost of living; enact a living wage and guarantee the right of all workers to form and join unions and guarantee quality health care for all.
All the states joining the Monday program suffer from high poverty, voter suppression, denial of healthcare and the lack of living minimum wage:
PLI=poverty/low-income
| State | PLI- Raw numbers | PLI – % | Black | Latinx | White |
| California | 20 million | 51% | 61% or 1.3M | 71% or 10.7 million | 38% or 5.6 million |
| Arizona | 2.9 million | 41% | 59% or 172,000 | 67% or 1.6 million | 31% or 1 million |
| Oregon | 1.7 million | 41% | 60% or 47,000 | 69% or 380,000 | 38% or 1.1 million |
| Washington | 2.5 million | 33% | 55% or 145,000 | 60% or 595,000 | 32% or 1.2 million |
Our study tells us that poor and low-income people hold power at the ballot box when they vote. In the 2020 presidential election, poor and low-income people made up 27% of voters in California. In Arizona, the figure was 39%; Oregon, 38% and Washington, 26%.
Previous tour stops were: Cleveland, Madison, Wisconsin, Raleigh, North Carolina, New York City, and Philadelphia. The last tour stop before our June 18th march and assembly is May 23 in Memphis and the Delta of Mississippi.
The June 18th assembly in DC will be a generationally transformative declaration of the power of poor and low-wealth people and our moral allies to say that this system is killing ALL of us and we can’t…we won’t…we refuse to be silent anymore!
“It is NOT just a day of action. It is a declaration of an ongoing, committed moral movement to 1) shift the moral narrative; 2) build power; and 3) make real policies to fully address poverty and low wealth from the bottom up.”
—Bishop William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. co-chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival