- I'm happy to welcome you to this event,
which is sponsored by
the Rockefeller Center
and part of the ongoing Martin
Luther King, Jr celebration
at Dartmouth with the
cosponsorship of the Tucker Center.
I thank the Tucker Center
dean, Rabbi Daveen Litwin,
my colleague, Professor Susannah Heschel,
John Blay, and Bob Coates
of the Rockefeller Center,
and Norm Seinweiss Beck
of the Kairos Center
and The Poor People's Campaign,
for making this campus visit possible.
The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis
is co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign,
A National Call For Moral Revival,
with the Reverend Dr.
William J. Barber II.
Their effort represents the organization
of the largest and most expansive wave
of non-violent civil
disobedience in US history.
Dr. Theoharis is the director
of the Kairos Center
for religions, rights,
and social justice at
Union Theological Seminary.
She has spent over the past two decades
organizing amongst the
poor in the United States,
working with and advising
grassroots organizations
with significant victories.
These include the Coalition
of Immokalee Workers,
the Vermont Workers Center,
Domestic Workers United,
the National Union of the Homeless
and the Kensington Welfare Rights Union.
Dr. Theoharis received her
received her Bachelor of Arts
in Urban Studies from the
University of Pennsylvania,
her Master of Divinity
from Union Theological Seminary in 2004
where she was the first
William Sloane Coffin Scholar,
and her PhD from Union
in New Testament and Christian Origins.
She has been published in "Time Magazine,"
"The Guardian," "Sojourners,"
"The Nation," "The Christian
Century," and others.
In 2018, she gave the TED Talk titled
"Building A Moral Movement" at TEDWomen.
She was named one of the Politico 50
of "thinkers, doers and visionaries
"whose ideas are driving politics."
One of the "11 Women Shaping
The Church" by Sojourners,
the Women of Spirit recipient
from the Presbyterian Church USA,
and the Selma Bridge
Award Recipient in 2018.
Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis is the author
of "Always With Us?: What Jesus
Really Said About the Poor."
She is co-author of
"Revive Us Again: Vision and
Action in Moral Organizing."
Reverend Dr. Theoharis
is an ordained minister
in the Presbyterian Church USA
and teaches at Union Theological
Seminary in New York City.
Her talk and her marks are titled,
"What has Become of His Dreams?"
Please join me in welcoming
Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis.
(audience clapping)
- Thank you.
Good evening.
- [Audience] Good evening.
- How are folks doing?
- [Audience Member] Good.
- Anyone wants to sit, come on over.
I wanted to start actually this evening
with a short video that
the Poor People's Campaign
A National Call For Moral
Revival has put together
to bring into this room, into this space,
some of the real heroes and
heroines of this country
who are building fusion,
moral, grassroots movement
from the bottom up.
And really honoring and
carrying on the legacy
of Dr. King and so many others
who have fought for justice.
So I'm going to start with that
and then share some remarks
and then be excited to
have a chance for dialogue
and discussion with you all.
(dramatic music)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
One of the tents in the
Poor People's Campaign
Resurrection City, back in 1968
had painted a passive
from Genesis 37 on it.
"And they said one to another,
behold this dreamer cometh.
"Come now therefore and let us slay him,
"cast him into some pit, and we will say,
"some evil beast has devoured him.
"And we shall see what
will become of his dreams."
MLK Jr., 1929 to 1968.
One of the mule-trained
caravans form Marks, Mississippi
in 1968 has written on it,
"I had a dream."
Another had, "Don't laugh folks,
but Jesus was a poor man."
Indeed, the last campaign that
the Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King was waging
was called A Poor People's Campaign.
He proposed uniting and
organizations thousands
of poor people from all across the country
into a force to be reckoned with.
He suggested that the
Achilles heel of racism
and poverty and militarism
was to unite millions
of poor people across
race, geography, issue,
into a campaign to lift the
load of injustice and poverty.
He said that the Vietnam
War had turned the war
on poverty into a
skirmish and it would take
pulling poor people together
to stop the war on the poor,
to stop the cruel
manipulation of the poor.
As I think everyone here knows,
Dr. King was killed as he waged
this Poor People's Campaign.
And when he was assassinated,
much of the power
and organizing of it was assassinated too.
Over the past 50 years,
poverty has actually increased by 60%
and there's been virtually dead silence
on it and the interlocking
injustices that surround it.
So as I stand before you this evening,
there are 140 million poor
and low-wealth people in America.
15 million families
who can't afford water,
although Dr. King said,
"The world is made up
"of 2/3 water."
There are 62 million
workers who are making less
than minimum wage and not one town,
once city, one country in
these yet to be United States,
where if you're working full-time
and making minimum wage,
that you can afford
to even rent a two bedroom apartment.
Poverty is a national emergency.
250,000 people die every
year because of poverty,
that's more than heart attacks and strokes
and cancer combined.
And our government can say
it's a national emergency,
pull a presidential task force together
when seven people die from vaping.
But 700 people died today
because they can't access
the abundance that could lift
the load of poverty for everyone.
So in such a time as this,
people are called to come together,
are called to build a
movement of the people,
by the people, for the
people, because indeed,
if we look at history,
it is only when those
who are most impacted by
the injustices of society
ban together with people
from all walks of life,
that we can indeed make
life better for everyone.
If we're serious about
undercutting and addressing
abolishing systemic racism and poverty,
ecological devastation, and militarism,
we need moral analysis,
moral articulation,
and moral action.
If we are to challenge
a false moral narrative
that blames poor people,
blames people of color,
blames immigrants for all
of society's problems,
that tries to pit us against each other
and feeds us the lie of scarcity,
we need a grassroots moral movement
that is focused on
saving the heart and soul
of our democracy and our nation.
Over the past three years,
the Poor People's Campaign
has been building coordinating committees,
impacted leaders, clergy,
activists, organizers,
in more than 43 states
and in Washington, DC.
We spent time in my
home state of Wisconsin,
where the safety net has been shredded
over the past decade and families
are going without heat and electricity,
even as it snows like
it is snowing outside.
We've spent time in
Lowndes County, Alabama
where families have no access
to sanitation services.
Are living with raw sewage in their yards,
precipitating a healthcare crisis
where tropical diseases that were once
eradicated have reemerged.
We spent time in Crossett, Arkansas,
where grandparents told
us that they do not
want their grandchildren visiting
because of the level of
pollution in their town.
That even coming to see their grandparents
might endanger their lives.
We've been to Pacoima, California
where one in four children,
predominantly Native American
children, are homeless.
But we have more abandoned luxury housing
than it would take to
have every homeless person
in this country.
So the Poor People's Campaign in 2018
organized the largest
and most expansive wave
of nonviolent civil disobedience
in the 21st century.
In 2019 we pulled off the Poor People's
Moral Action Congress,
held the largest forum
with presidential candidates
in this election season.
Got those candidates, as you saw,
to commit to a full
nationally televised debate
and we're still pushing for it.
Drawing from this deep engagement,
we've developed a Poor
People's Moral Agenda,
a Poor People's Moral Budget,
to eliminate, not simply ameliorate
the problems of racism and poverty
ecological devastation
in this war economy.
Many folks have told us that
we're being too ambitious,
that the demands of poor
people are too expensive,
politically impossible, this is not true.
The benefits of our demands
far outweigh the costs.
In fact, it is the cost of continuing
immoral policies, misguided priorities,
that this nation, this
world, cannot afford.
Child poverty costs the United States
one trillion dollars this past year.
For every dollar invested
in early childhood education
programs and healthcare
programs, we save $7.
111 billion dollars were spent last year
because of unstable housing.
In light of this, we need a
moral revolution of values
that places the needs
and demands of the poor
of the planet at the heart
of our national priorities and actions.
We have a saying in our work,
that if you lift from the
bottom, everybody rises.
We know this from social science,
political science, economics.
As a pastor and preacher
and biblical scholar,
I also know it from the "Bible".
In Deuteronomy it says
that if you forgive debts,
you increase programs
that uplift the poor,
if you pay your workers a living wage,
if you release those who are oppressed
and you lend that money knowing
you might not ever get paid back,
your whole society will flourish.
God does not ordain poverty.
The poor will only be with us always
as long we are disobedient
to our moral teachings.
Poverty is people's creation.
It is the creation of
immoral policies and budgets,
and we can choose to end it.
I want to share a couple
of examples on this.
If we just raise the minimum wage
to a living wage, we would
experience 370 billion dollars
being brought back into our communities.
If we
repealed the 2017
Wealth Tax Cut,
we could get 886 billion dollars back
and invest it, not in Wall Street,
but in Main Streets.
We could provide healthcare and housing
and education for everyone.
In fact, feeding people
improves our economy
more than killing people
through the military.
In this richest country in the world,
we have abundant resources.
The problem is that our public policies
have funneled too much to too few.
We don't have a scarcity of resources,
a scarcity of political will, we do have.
But it doesn't have to be this way
and people are rising up to make a change.
I want to tell you a
little bit about the power
of some of the leaders of this campaign.
Leaders like Marian Kramer,
a grandma from Detroit, Michigan
who put her body in front
of trucks being sent
to cut off the water as
we heard on that video.
Who developed a water affordability plan
that eliminates water shutoffs,
not just for Detroit, but
as it's being implemented
in communities across the
country, lifts everybody up.
I'm particularly inspired by Callie Greer,
the mom who lost not just
one, but two of her kids
because of poverty.
But who has vowed to build
a Poor People's Campaign
and has organized some of
the largest demonstrations
of poor people in Alabama
and across this country.
I can tell you about families in Kentucky
who entered the State House,
although they were initially banned
and delivered toothbrushes to
the elected officials there
that was able to result in stopping
attaching work requirements to Medicaid
and dental care and vision plans.
I could tell you about
homeless white millennials
in Washington State who are entering
into the prisons there.
They have the highest incarceration rate
for non-criminal offenses,
making connections to
young people in Ferguson
and other parts of the country
and organizing the young
people in the jails there.
Preventing white supremacists from coming
and recruiting these young people
and recruiting them instead
into a moral movement.
A movement of people across racial lines.
And I could tell you about
a mass meeting we held
in Greenfield, Massachusetts last night
where hundreds of poor
people from Franklin County,
from Boston, from
Cambridge, from Springfield,
came together and said we will be there
in the numbers for a mass
Poor People's Assembly
and Moral March on
Washington on June 20, 2020.
I want to share a message from Dr. King
as he was calling for this
Poor People's Campaign.
He says, "Disinherited
people all over the world,
"are bleeding to death from deep social
"and economic wounds.
"They need brigades of ambulance drivers
"who will have to ignore the red lights
"of the present system until
the emergency is solved."
The Poor People's Campaign,
A National Call For Moral Revival
believes that we're living
in a midst of a time
of great change and transformation.
When the old ways and
structures of society are dying.
And new movements are being born.
We believe that there is
indeed an emergency going on
and that people in the
numbers are signing up
to be ambulance drivers,
to call attention and come
forward with resolutions
to the problems that are plaguing society.
Bryan Stevenson, of the
Equal Justice Initiative
has an appropriate quote for the problems
that we're trying to solve.
He says, the opposite of
poverty is not wealth,
the opposite of poverty is justice.
This is what we're doing.
We're organizing for justice
starting with those who have little
or nothing to lose.
And bringing everybody in
to a deep moral movement
that can change society for the better.
So I want to invite everybody here,
if you're not already involved,
to join the Poor People's Campaign,
A National Call For Moral Revival.
We are a direct action movement.
We're building power among the poor
and on June 20, 2020 we are holding
a mass Poor People's Assembly
and Moral March on Washington.
Where thousands of people from every state
in this country will
come to hear the stories
and solutions of organized poor
people who are fighting back
to make this country great for everyone.
We're compelled in times
like these to stand up.
To say I choose to be
a part of the solution.
To raise our hands and answer the question
from the prophets, who
will stand in the gap?
Who will come forward
for the work of justice?
To say that I lived at a time when people
had raw sewage in their yards,
and homeless folks were being trampled on
across the country and I
banded together with people
and built a justice movement.
I want to quote one
more quote from Dr. King
as we honor his legacy
and how do with honor it,
but to take up that work
and carry it the next mile.
He says, "There comes a
time when a moral person
"can't obey a law, which his
conscious tells him is unjust."
And I tell you this morning my friends,
that history has moved
on and great moments
have often come forth
because there were those
individuals in every
age, in every generation,
who are willing to say I will be obedient
to a higher law.
These men were saying
I must be disobedient
to a king in order to
be obedient to the King.
And never forget that
everything that Hitler
did in Germany was legal.
It was legal to do
everything that Hitler did
to the Jews.
It was a law in Germany
that Hitler issued himself
that it was wrong and illegal
to aide and comfort a Jew
in Hitler's Germany.
But I tell you, if I had
lived in Hitler's Germany
with my attitude, I would
have openly broken that law.
I would have practiced civil disobedience.
And so it is important to
see that there are times
when a man-made law is out of harmony
with the moral law of the universe.
There are times when human
law is out of harmony
with eternal and divine laws.
And when that happens, you
have an obligation to break it.
And I'm happy that in breaking it,
I have some good company.
I have Shadrach, and
Meshach, and Abednego,
I have Jesus and Socrates
and I have all of the early
Christians and others who refused to bow.
Let us end with those words.
Commit ourselves to being
a part of a moral movement
that is rising up, thank you.
(audience clapping)
- [Vaughn] Where do you want to sit?
- I think I was told I'm
supposed to sit here.
- [Vaughn] Okay.
- And I don't often
listen to what I'm told,
but in this case I could.
- Thank you for sharing
the message in visual form
and your own words as well
as the words of Dr. King.
So this is a period for Q
and A, so I'm not going to be
the one speaking primarily,
but I'll start us off
with a question and I
believe there are students
who'll circulate mics around.
So if you do have a question,
please wait for the
microphone to come to you.
But I'll start, my class,
Religion in Civil Rights Movement,
we are reading "Stride Towards Freedom,"
which was Martin Luther
King's first experience
learning what local organizing felt like.
And flash forward, here we are
with this moral movement of folks.
And I'm also thinking of
Freedom Summer in '64,
in which the folks who needed access
to the political party itself
show up at the convention.
Because this is 2020 and
I'm asking this question,
you have a march on Washington planned,
is there any planning in that regard
for the conventions that come later?
Will the Poor People's Campaign show up
to make those candidates
make good on their promise?
- So we challenged folks in June
to call for this debate.
We were back at the Iowa
debate couple months later,
not that many weeks ago,
marching morally on that debate,
reminding folks of that promise.
The reason we have chosen
June 20th is multiple.
But one is that it's between the primary
and the conventions.
We didn't want to wait
to the end of the summer
when the agendas have been set,
when the candidates have been chosen,
to make the voice and power
of poor people felt and heard.
June 20th is also the day
before the summer solstice,
which is about the birthing
of light and hope and promise.
So we will be there on
June 20th and then continue
to organize folks, probably
both at the conventions
and between June and November.
We're on a 25 state tour right now,
it's called the We Must Do More Tour.
Mobilizing, organizing, registering,
educating people for
a movement that votes.
And a lot of our work is
focused on this election
and far beyond.
We need a movement that
can hold to account
anybody who is elected or takes office.
And enacts the kind of
policies and demands
that we know are possible
and that the people want.
And so I appreciate also this point
about the kind of grassroots organizing
that Dr. King and folks engaged in.
And that very kind of
organizing is happening
in just thousands of communities
across this country, right?
You know thousands of
people wake up every morning
in this country and say I can be a part
of a movement and that's where the power
of something you know
actually starts to change.
I mean, you know Dr.
King was pretty reticent
at the beginning to get involved, right?
We often don't hear these stories about
you know, he was called the morning
that the boycott decided to have a,
well before they decided to do a boycott
and said you know, we
need to use your church,
it's a central church.
And Bayard Rustin called
him and E.D. Nixon
and said, you know can we use your church.
And Dr. King said no.
I have a young one year old, I'm too busy.
And then they just kept on calling back
and then he was like
okay, if all I have to do
is come to this one meeting,
open up my church, fine.
And just over and over
again folk pushed him,
pushed others, and that kind of pushing
is happening not just with one leader,
but with thousands of
leaders across this country.
Here in New Hampshire, there
is a Poor People's Campaign
A National Call for Moral
Revival state chapter
and we would love for everybody here
to be a part of that, for
everybody here to organize
at least one, maybe two buses each
to come to June 20th and
engage in direct organizing.
For students, we have launched
a Poor People's Campaign
Student Fellowship, where
folk will get to learn
many of these grassroots
organizing skills.
And so, you know, there is a movement
growing in this country and
it needs absolutely everybody.
And it can and will and
is making a difference.
- Ready for audience questions.
The gentleman right here I see first.
- So where I'm from in North Carolina,
a lot of issues regarding poverty
get painted as either you
know a blue or a red issue,
not as an issue of poverty.
And you know for I think a lot of folk
in North Carolina, rather
than see an issue as hey,
this is something that you
know could help provide
the opportunity, this is
something that could progress
my neighbors and everyone around me,
no this is a blue issue,
this is a red issue,
so how are you guys kind of helping
overcome the partisan
world that we live in,
which frames all these things?
- Yeah, I think this is really important
in this election year, in this moment.
You know what we're
finding as we travel around
to North Carolina, to Alabama, to Texas,
is that it's not so much that folks
are living in red states or blue states,
they're living in unorganized states.
You know 100 million
people did not engage,
did not vote, eligible voters,
did not vote in the 2016 election.
That is more people than voted
for any of the candidates combined, right?
Many of those hundred million
were folks that are poor,
are part of that 140 million
poor and low income people.
What we're finding, and we're coming out
with the study actually
in the next month or so,
that in certain counties, if two,
three, five, 10% of eligible voters
that are poor were to
come together and vote
with a moral agenda in mind,
that it could fundamentally
change our political landscape.
That we've had 30 debates since the 2016
presidential election and not one of those
has taken up the issues
that actually impact
about half if not more than half
of the US population.
So, what we have right now
is some of it's partisanship
but what we're finding is that
kind of behind that surface,
that most folk are just trying to see
what we could make of this world together.
And that, you know we've
done some deep organizing
in many states.
The Poor People's
Campaign was really active
in three of the five counties
that basically flipped the
Kentucky governor's election.
And we don't vote, we
are a very non-partisan,
deeply political movement.
Including that in those 40 days of action
where people were engaging
in massive nonviolence
civil obedience, we have republicans,
we had independents, we have democrats,
we had unaffiliated folks,
all doing that together.
I mean just factually
empirically that was the case.
But the governor that had been in power,
that no longer is, had blocked Poor People
from entering the State
Capitol in Kentucky.
Had made it a law just for
the Poor People's Campaign,
just for poor folks,
that you had to go two in
and then wait for those two to come out
and then two more poor people could go in.
I don't know if folks looked, follow,
but this past weekend,
there was assembly of hundreds of folks
in the state capitol in Kentucky
with their guns full blaze.
So you only allow two poor people,
multi-racial poor people
in a time to go in,
but you allow hundreds of people
with their guns to be there.
So that governor who passed that rule,
who also stood against
the expansion of Medicaid,
who stood against the
raising of living wages,
lost in this last election.
Much of because of the organizing
across party lines, across issue area,
that poor people were
doing in the counties
that flipped in Kentucky.
And who they put into office,
never endorsing any particular person,
but the person who got
elected into office,
had been actually the Attorney General,
who had ruled that law
limiting two by two by two
poor people into the State
Capitol as unconstitutional.
And who actually came forward
with the Poor People's Campaign logos
and with our slogans
and around our agenda.
And then folks decided
to vote that person in
and other people out.
And again, did this across party lines,
did this across red state and blue state.
But found the power of people organizing
and voting together.
To me that shows the
unbelievable potential.
Not to say any particular party,
not to get any particular
politicians elected,
but to transform our political
discourse and landscape,
and to actually put front and center,
the issues that actually,
that the populous is concerned about.
And the solutions that
people have to those issues,
you know into reality.
- [Vaughn] There's a
question right back there.
- [Audience Member] Liz,
it's great to have you
in New Hampshire again,
thanks for being here.
I really appreciate through involvement
with the Poor People's Campaign,
the effort to change the moral narrative
and I'm sure you share the frustration
with how difficult it's been
for that to get traction.
On the one hand, and I was there
when we asked each of the
candidates to commit to it.
On the one hand I was
delighted in the last debate
to hear two candidates actually mention
the Poor People's Campaign,
so at least there was an awareness of it.
On the other hand, that
debate that we asked for then
has yet to happen.
So my two questions
are how hopeful are you
that one of the debates is
finally going to address
this issue and what more can
we be doing to get there?
- So I appreciate this and
you know we have three goals
in the Poor People's
Campaign and they will be
our three goals until we achieve them
and then maybe we can get some more.
But (laughs), and those goals
are to shift the narrative
to get our nation
talking and acting on the issues
that actually concern people.
To impact elections and policies,
again not in a partisan way,
but in a very political way.
And to build the power of poor people.
Dr. King says as he was building
the Poor People's Campaign,
that you know power
for poor people will be
making the power structures
say yes when they may be
desirest of saying no, right.
So it's not, so how do we have the power?
And so those three things
I think come in even
to this kind of call for a debate, right.
And so we will keep you know pushing.
The fact that two candidates did talk
on national TV about the
Poor People's Campaign
and how we are marching
and demanding this,
the fact that CNN and a
number of other commentators
and networks have
acknowledged that they need
to be bringing these
issues into the debates,
the fact that actually, you know thousands
and thousands of people reached out
to the candidates and reached out the DNC
saying we're still here, we need a debate.
And we got calls from
all of the candidates
saying what do you need us to do.
And we said fight for a debate on poverty,
you know put out an
agenda that's our agenda.
You know advocate for the
unity and organization
or poor people and you
know we will keep pushing.
And we won't be silent until we win
or until it further shows how
this democracy is impoverished
and doesn't focus on the issues
that really concern folk.
And therefore why you
need a ground up movement
where it's not that
we're asking politicians
to save us but that we're building
the kind of power to be
able to enact the will
and change, not just the narrative
but the actual structures of society
that are costing our nation too much,
but yet are full entrenched.
So you know, we need you
all to send those letters,
to call on folks, to
insist that these issues
are front and center and
mostly we need people
to organize, organize, organize,
especially poor and impacted people.
- Chris, right here.
- Thank you so much for
taking the time to come here.
So, you hear a lot about
sort of extreme power,
you hear a lot about $2 a day
and different things like that
where there's just levels of poverty.
And there's a lot of examples
in the film that you showed us,
just like poverty that
almost incomprehensible
in today's world.
And my question is sort
of around the idea of,
do you ever find it difficult,
or I guess your team, find it difficult
when engaging in folks in these
extreme poverty communities,
where you're trying to gather
and organizers are saying,
and I think a lot of
the issues that come up,
that I'm imagining is like the results
and the goals of these
things is sort of long term
or medium term, electing new people,
and enacting medium policy down the road.
Especially for some of
the most practical things
like education policy that
could take a generation
to really make the impact.
So you have these goals and
the objectives are clear,
but then you, you're
interacting with people
who their objective is just staying alive.
And that in and of itself is a challenge.
So I'm just wondering how
you guys kind of interact
with that dynamic of people
are just trying to live
day to day and a lot of the changes
that impacts are more
medium to long term, thanks.
- I mean I really appreciate this.
And as a preacher that tries to move
particularly lots of
churches on these issues.
A lot of our faith communities are very,
very happy to try to meet immediate needs,
but then don't want to advocate
for larger justice issues.
And then also some of
the churches that we have
that want to advocate for justice issues,
don't want to think they're too good
to meet people's needs.
And if you don't do both,
you aren't connected
to actually a growing movement right?
You have to meet people's needs.
Now, not every organization
has to be that way,
but you know for instance, in Pennsylvania
the Poor People's Campaign
and some of the organizations there,
there's one that's called Put
People First Pennsylvania,
has done these collections
to basically pay
for people's medical debt.
Because they can't engage
in larger organizing
if people don't have
the medicine they need,
if they're too buried in debt.
You know we have Greater
Birmingham Ministries
in Birmingham, Alabama where folks
are meeting people's
needs at the same time
as advocating for living wages.
You know and so the Poor People's Campaign
A National Call For Moral Revival
isn't, we say this, we
aren't one organization,
we're an organism and we're made up
of a lot of organizations and we need
all those organizations and
we need all those programs
and we need these moments and places
where people are coming together
and advocating for change
in the long and medium term
and also meeting needs in the short
and immediate term.
And what we've also
found is that you know,
in the words of Dr. King,
those who have little
or even nothing to lose,
have a power that can be
a new unsettling force
in our complacent national life.
Or in the words of a fight for 15 worker,
who I think was in the
video, but yes he was, okay.
His name is Nick Smith,
he's out of Virginia,
Appalachian, Virginia, he says,
"Our backs are against the wall
and all we can do is push."
Where what we're finding is that,
there are people who are
not too poor to organize,
in fact, they have to organize
for their very survival.
And sometimes that means organizing food
and organizing you know housing,
but it also means organizing
for larger systemic change.
And you know last night
one of the testifiers
that was just beautiful in
this Greenfield, Massachusetts
mass meetings, she said that she,
after connecting with the
Poor People's Campaign
and seeing the power of
poor people come together,
had moved from trying to make a living
to making a difference.
And that that had saved her life.
Because without it,
she you know struggled
day to day to pay bills.
She blamed herself for
the situation she was in.
She regularly didn't
have lights to turn on.
She you know was just going
from crisis to crisis,
but by connecting up with the campaign,
for one, she has a network of folks
that she's not alone in, that
can help meet those needs.
But also she can fight,
not just for herself
but for others.
And doing that, you know
opens up possibility,
opens up hope, and opens up you know
actual systemic change.
And so, so it means that we have to,
you know walk on two feel.
You know we have to figure out
what in the immediate,
you know this report
was talking about this earlier,
this report came out this week
that we have the highest levels
of student homelessness in history, right?
So we have to figure out,
what are we going to do
about that in the here and now.
Like what are we going
to do about the fact
that millions of students
in this country right now
actually are homeless.
And at the same time, you
can't end student homelessness
one person at a time.
It's a structure that exists
that keeps people homeless
and keeps creating homelessness.
And so at the same time as you figure out
an immediate solution to those problems,
we have to be advocating for larger
social transformation and change.
And you can walk on both legs to do that
and that's what organizing is about.
- Evelyn has a question.
- Welcome to Dartmouth.
- Thank you.
- I am from the state of
Alabama and I get to visit
the state of Alabama and I get to witness
communities who are poorer now
than they were 30 and 40 years ago.
But yet the national narrative is,
we're all doing well.
We're the wealthiest we've ever been.
The African American
employment is the best
that it's ever been, but they're people
on this campus who believe that.
They're people on this campus and others
who do not know that
they're hungry students
on this campus from poor families
and they live here.
So what we and my community
that goes back to Alabama
know Lowndes County so extremely well.
It's to first of all, be
so happy that you're there,
you have no idea what
it means to those of us
who are trying to make the
little moving parts work.
Doing every single thing you
can for every family member,
every family friend,
every friend of a friend.
But like you said, those are little parts,
it's not one person, even
though we change the life
of that person, still the
structures are still in place.
So how do we, in a community like this,
help people understand the one sign said
don't hate the poor, don't fight the poor.
Fight the problem is what I'm saying.
How do we continue to day after day,
in addition to doing our
part, putting our money
in the places that definitely
impact poor people directly,
and in my case, poor
people of color directly?
My money is going in a different
places than it used to,
but how do we do those two things?
Work on an individual level so
that we're helping families,
we're helping individuals.
But also in communities like this,
break down that wall of
ignorance and I don't know
if it's voluntary or involuntary. (laughs)
- No, I really appreciate that.
I mean there is so much to do
and we have to do some of all of it,
you know at the same time.
So I think when it comes to this,
the kind of question of the misinformation
and the perhaps willful
ignorance that exists,
I mean right now almost for those same
30, 40 years that you're talking about
where poverty has worsened,
there's been almost absolute
silence on a national level.
And even in many community
level of these issues.
And so, you know the fact
that we have close to half
of the US population experiencing
some form of poverty,
it means that of course there are students
that are food insecure here.
Of course there are
staff members who are not
getting paid living wages.
You know if there's no
town in this entire country
that people who work
full-time on the minimum wage,
which a lot of people make,
can afford a two bedroom apartment,
again, there's like no
place that's immune to it.
And yeah, we also see places
where's there's a real concentration
like places like Lowndes County,
like the Mississippi Delta,
like Harlan County, Kentucky.
And so you know, we have
been basically spending
many years trying to kind
of wake this country up,
trying to have a campaign of information.
Trying to you know,
sow the seeds of truth,
trying to get some attention,
whether it's the media,
whether it's from universities,
whether it's from public
intellectuals to these issues.
And we now see ourselves
moving into a time
where we have to more
than just wake people up,
but we have to kind of rise up together
and organize together.
And so the Poor People's Campaign,
you know is calling for this
generationally transformative event.
We're organizing in these 43 states.
And we, while we know that a lot of things
have to happen and this is a moment
when many flowers need to bloom,
what we can do is try
to shift the narrative,
try to impact elections and policies,
and try to build the power of poor people.
And then encourage other organizations
to do all the other pieces
that have to happen.
And see them as a puzzle
that is only complete
if we have all of it going on.
And so indeed identifying
the kinds of programs,
the kinds of organizations that are doing
the really hard, the really
kind of down and dirty work
of meeting people's needs, of
trying to lift up families,
trying to keep people together.
Trying to you know, address these issues.
It means you know,
calling out our elected officials.
It means calling out our
faith and religious leaders.
It means calling out anybody
with influence in society
to be true to what's
at the core and center
of our Constitution and moral values.
And if there's a deviation from that,
to call us back to it.
And it also means, you
know engaging in the long,
hard work of actually
community organizing.
And so, and that, I mean I think about
someone like Dr. King right,
I mean they say that he
basically had to like work
for 15 hours on every one
hour sermon he gave, right?
When you think about different leaders,
it's not easy work you know to build
community food programs, to
meet people's healthcare needs.
Like it's not that you
get to just flip a switch
or snap your fingers and
it's all easy and done,
it's like long, hard work.
And so because it is that long, hard work,
you know it takes people
with a deep commitment.
And it takes everybody.
And so you know, I've really enjoyed
talking to folk here
today because I've met
a lot of people who seem to be,
you know deeply aware that
there are problems happening
you know here and across the country.
And that folk have a role
to play in the solution.
And so you know, that's the,
as Dr. King said the night
before he was killed,
that the beginning of ending of slavery
was when the people got together.
And so to me the first step of this
is how people are coming together.
And if people come together,
then you might be able to win.
But if people don't come together,
then we'll stay in the state of emergency
that you know, that so
many communities of color,
that so many poor communities
are living in every day.
- I know they're probably
many more questions,
and we are at our time limit,
but I'm sure you'll have
an opportunity to speak
with Revered Dr. Theoharis
after we conclude.
So let's please give her
another warm welcome.
Thank you.
(audience clapping)
- Thanks Vaughn.
