The assembly kicked off a one-year campaign dedicated to building a mass Moral March on Washington and Poor Peoples & Low-Wage Workers Assembly on June 18, 2022. The hybrid online and in-person mass assembly included over 40 state coordinating committees, over 200 organizing partners, and thousands of faith leaders. Today on Sojourner Truth, we bring you exclusive audio from that assembly. During todays program, you will hear speeches, testimony and music from the historic event, which was led by Poor Peoples Campaign co-chairs Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II.
Sojourner Truth Radio: June 22, 2021 – Third Reconstruction Assembly, Poor People’s Campaign
On Monday, June 21, thousands of poor people, low-wage workers, campaigners and faith leaders from across the United States gathered online for a mass assembly organized by the Poor Peoples Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. The assembly, which simultaneously featured a socially-distanced rally in North Carolina, called for the realization of the Third Reconstruction. The Third Reconstruction draws from the transformational history of the First Reconstruction following the U.S. Civil War and the Second Reconstruction of the civil rights movement of the 20th century.
The Poor Peoples Campaign describes the Third Reconstruction as a revival of the country’s constitutional commitment to establish justice, provide for the general welfare, end decades of austerity, and recognize that policies that center the country’s 140 million poor are also good economic policies that can heal and transform the nation.
Members of Congress have introduced a non-partisan resolution entitled, A Third Reconstruction: It’s Time to Fully Address Poverty and Low Wages from the Bottom Up. Inspired by decades of fierce campaigning, the congressional resolution for a Third Reconstruction reflects a progressive vision for a fundamental restructuring of society. The resolution points out that in order to build a true Third Reconstruction, U.S. society must deal with the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the denial of health care, militarism and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism that blames the poor instead of the systems that cause poverty.
Furthermore, the assembly kicked off a one-year campaign dedicated to building a mass Moral March on Washington and Poor Peoples & Low-Wage Workers Assembly on June 18, 2022. The hybrid online and in-person mass assembly included over 40 state coordinating committees, over 200 organizing partners, and thousands of faith leaders. Today on Sojourner Truth, we bring you exclusive audio from that assembly. During todays program, you will hear speeches, testimony and music from the historic event, which was led by Poor Peoples Campaign co-chairs Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II.