Rhode Island Poor People’s Campaign Announces Participation In Mass Poor People and Low Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls.

Yesterday marked 30 days from June 18, 2022, when the Poor People’s Campaign, a National Call for Moral Revival, will be holding its Mass Poor People and Low Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls.

Following in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King, the campaign has identified five interlocking injustices:

1. Systemic racism;
2. Poverty and inequality;
3. The war economy and militarism;
4. Ecological devastation and denial of health care; and
5. The false narrative of religious nationalism.

There will be buses leaving from various rally points in Rhode Island. The campaign will provide free tickets, on a first-come-first-served basis, for those who cannot afford them.

The Rhode Island Poor People’s Campaign is supporting legislation addressing homelessness, redirecting the resources that are poured into the Rhode Island war economy and using them for a just transition for those who work in this sector to one that benefits the people of Rhode Island, and in  particular the most vulnerable among them.

The  Rhode Island Poor People’s Campaign, as part of Just Peace Rhode Island, a coalition of grassroots peace and social justice organizations, is currently working on a Rhode Island House of Representatives resolution urging the U.S. to sign and ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. The Rhode Island Senate recently adopted such a resolution in a historic vote, but the House is stalling on the matter.

In collaboration with one of its partners, the George Wiley Center, the  Rhode Island Poor People’s Campaign is currently urging Governor McKee to throw his weight behind legislation—currently stuck in committee—that would provide for affordable utilities for Rhode Islanders.

As Pamela Poniatowski of Riverside, an organizer for the Rhode Island Poor People’s Campaign, put it: “We are mobilizing to bring poor and low-wealth workers and our allies to Washington for the June 18 Moral March  and Assembly to address the interlocking injustices that for far too long, have kept all of us struggling month to month. One of the Poor People’s Campaign slogans is—and we have a song for this—‘When we lift from the bottom, everybody rises! Come join us, we have a place for you.’”