Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff Lauren bogebam here. Originally organized by Martin
Speaker 1: Luther King, Jr. And the Southern Christian Leadership Conference or SCLC,
Speaker 1: the Poor People's Campaign was born from a push for
Speaker 1: economic justice in the Civil Rights era and is now
Speaker 1: impacting policies and elections at every level of government. We
Speaker 1: spoke by email Jonathan Wilson heart Grove, a Poor People's
Speaker 1: Campaign steering committee member. He explained the original Poor People's
Speaker 1: Campaign was a fusion movement for economic justice that grew
Speaker 1: out of the Civil Rights movement. Natives Chicano's, poor whites
Speaker 1: from Appalachia, and welfare rights organizations from northern cities joined
Speaker 1: black folks from the South to demand an economy that
Speaker 1: works for everyone. That coalition won some real gains with
Speaker 1: the War on Poverty, the Fair Housing Act, and the
Speaker 1: legislative advocacy of the Children's Defense Fund. President Lyndon Johnson
Speaker 1: declared the War on Poverty in nineteen sixty four, year
Speaker 1: in which nineteen percent of Americans about thirty five million
Speaker 1: people at the time, lived below the poverty level. King
Speaker 1: was motivated to call for representatives from various geographic and
Speaker 1: racial groups to help gain federal funding for a number
Speaker 1: of social programs, including a form of universal basic income,
Speaker 1: plus housing for the poor, and other anti poverty programs.
Speaker 1: In November of nineteen sixty seven, King and the staff
Speaker 1: of the SCLC met and decided to launch the Poor
Speaker 1: People's Campaign to highlight and find solutions to many of
Speaker 1: the problems facing poverty stricken people in the United States.
Speaker 1: The initial objective was to address rampant economic inequalities with
Speaker 1: non violent direct action in a widespread form of civil
Speaker 1: disobedience known as the Poor People's March. King, however, was
Speaker 1: assassinated before the culmination of the organization's efforts took place.
Speaker 1: Following his death, King's longtime friend Ralph Abernathy led the march,
Speaker 1: which included an estimated fifty thou demonstrators walking from the
Speaker 1: Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial, as well as speeches
Speaker 1: from Abernathy, then Vice President Hubert Humphrey, Democratic presidential candidate
Speaker 1: Eugene McCarthy, and King's widow, Coretta Scott King. While the
Speaker 1: original movement led to some major societal wins, it was
Speaker 1: also met with a fair amount of opposition. Five days
Speaker 1: after the march, authorities closed the temporary camp the demonstrators
Speaker 1: had erected, known as Resurrection City, that stood on the
Speaker 1: National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial. Over a hundred residents
Speaker 1: were arrested when they refused to leave the site, and
Speaker 1: others like Abernathy, were arrested during a demonstration at the U. S.
Speaker 1: Capital Building. Wilson Hartgrove says that the aftermath of the
Speaker 1: initial event was disheartening. He said poor people's demands were
Speaker 1: silenced by public narrative that blamed poor people for their problems.
Speaker 1: While the blowback could have stopped the organizers in their tracks,
Speaker 1: those at the core of the poor People's campaign were unfazed.
Speaker 1: Wilson hart Grove said. Over the past decades, many grassroots
Speaker 1: organizations have intensified their efforts to expose the fundamental lie
Speaker 1: that the world's largest economy cannot afford to meet the
Speaker 1: basic needs of all of its people. Several of those
Speaker 1: efforts began to gain national attention in when Moral Mondays,
Speaker 1: The Fight for Fifteen, and Black Lives Matter all emerged
Speaker 1: during the same summer as grassroots coalitions of people taking
Speaker 1: direct action to reclaim democracy for the common good. They
Speaker 1: were challenging the same entrenched powers as movements that were
Speaker 1: building to address immigrant justice, environmental justice, native land rights, homelessness,
Speaker 1: and public education. Originally known as the Poor People's Campaign,
Speaker 1: the modern incarnation of the movement is officially known as
Speaker 1: Poor People's Campaign. A National Call for Moral Revival. Wilson
Speaker 1: Heartgrove explains that the addendum is significant to today's continued
Speaker 1: struggles for justice and equality. He said, revival is an
Speaker 1: alternative to reform. One of the things that our current
Speaker 1: moment has revealed is that various efforts to reform our
Speaker 1: system haven't worked. It's still killing us. It's killed two
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty eight thousand people through failed response to COVID.
Speaker 1: It's killing more African Americans through police murders than were
Speaker 1: lynched the height of Jim Crow's terrorism in the South,
Speaker 1: and it's killing still more people from poverty. For too long,
Speaker 1: America has been comfortable with this level of death, and
Speaker 1: it has killed something inside of us. It has hardened
Speaker 1: our collective heart. Our call for revival is a call
Speaker 1: to choose life, to refuse to be comfortable with the
Speaker 1: level of death our current system tolerates. It's a call
Speaker 1: to reconstruct the system, to remake the world we are
Speaker 1: living in to reflect love, justice and mercy. Several modern
Speaker 1: leaders have been credited with the continuation of the efforts
Speaker 1: put forth by the Poor People's Campaign, including Reverend William J.
Speaker 1: Barber the Second and Reverend Doctor Liz the o'haris, who
Speaker 1: serve as co chairs for the Poor People's Campaign. Wilson
Speaker 1: hart Grove says that the organization began to invite the
Speaker 1: emerging grassroots movements into a quote national moral Fusion coalition
Speaker 1: to connect the visionary work of our elders in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties with the leaderful moments of today. The overarching
Speaker 1: goal of the organization, he says, has always been to
Speaker 1: win justice for poor people by shifting quote the more
Speaker 1: a narrative in the country from the distortions of the
Speaker 1: culture War and the politics of left versus right to
Speaker 1: the moral fundamental question of whether we are living up
Speaker 1: toward deepest constitutional and moral commitments. In Sparked by the
Speaker 1: murders of black men and women like George Floyd and
Speaker 1: Brianna Taylor, the Black Lives Matter movement has gained massive momentum,
Speaker 1: a phenomenon that Wilson Heartgrove explains ties directly to the
Speaker 1: Poor People's Campaign. He said, people who have witnessed police
Speaker 1: brutality and amass incarcerations disproportionate impact on African Americans cry
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter as a way of naming systemic racism
Speaker 1: as a dehumanizing reality. They're organizing to demand change in
Speaker 1: places like Ferguson has been exceptional and many people from
Speaker 1: those grassroots movements have been part of the Poor People
Speaker 1: Campaign's coalition buildings since we officially relaunched the campaign in
Speaker 1: It's important to remember that Rosa Parks was organizing against
Speaker 1: police brutality in Detroit, Michigan in nineteen sixty eight when
Speaker 1: the original Poor People's Campaign came to Washington, so a
Speaker 1: challenge to racist policing has always been a part of
Speaker 1: this movement. While anti racism has historically been at the
Speaker 1: root of the organization's mission, the magnitude of recent protests
Speaker 1: indicates an unprecedented wake up call to many. Wilson Heartgrove said.
Speaker 1: The protests have shown the effectiveness of mass, nonviolent demonstrations
Speaker 1: to shift public opinion, and they have led many people
Speaker 1: who have marched to ask the next question what changes
Speaker 1: are needed in our public life to address systemic racism.
Speaker 1: We have said all along that we can't address systemic
Speaker 1: racism apart from poverty, environmental degradation, militarism, and the distorted
Speaker 1: moral narrative of religious nationalism. So a lot of people
Speaker 1: have come into the coalition grateful for an analysis that
Speaker 1: can make the connections between issues, an agenda that makes
Speaker 1: clear what's needed, and a budget that shows how we
Speaker 1: could do it now if we had the political will.
Speaker 1: During the election season, the organizers ramped up efforts to
Speaker 1: inform the public about their right to vote and to
Speaker 1: engage politicians at both the national and state level about
Speaker 1: their campaign's issues. Wilson heart Grow said, We've done the
Speaker 1: research and know that nationwide, poor and low income people
Speaker 1: vote at rates much lower than high income groups. But
Speaker 1: we also know of places where just a five to
Speaker 1: ten percent increase in low income voters could shift the
Speaker 1: political landscape, forcing politicians to listen to the needs of
Speaker 1: everyday Americans. So we are inviting people to do that
Speaker 1: work of educating and mobilizing their neighbors, and folks can
Speaker 1: sign up to do that wherever they are. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was written by Michelle Coknstantinovski and produced by Tyler Flang.
Speaker 1: For more and that's in lots of other curious topics,
Speaker 1: visit how stuff works dot com. Brain Stuff is production
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