Submitted
The Kansas Poor People’s Campaign will launch the ‘Everybody’s Got a Right to Live Reality Tour’ this week and includes a stop in Hays at 2 p.m. Sunday, April 7 at the Hays Public Library.
Kansas is one of 28 states participating in the national Poor People’s Campaign’s organizing tour, a push to highlight the urgent crises facing the nation’s 140 million poor and low-income people and hold accountable the elected officials who perpetuate policy violence against vulnerable communities.
“The Reality Tour comes amidst a barrage of attacks on the poor from Washington and states across the country, including attempts by the president to divert critical funds away from social safety net programs toward the military and the border wall. It marks the next phase of the campaign’s nationwide efforts to highlight the real emergencies of poverty, systemic racism, ecological devastation, militarism and our distorted moral narrative; build power in often overlooked and underserved communities; and impact policies and elections,” the campaign said in a news release.
Local stops are designed to shine a light on injustices facing poor Kansans. In Kansas, the group’s organizing committees will share stories that highlight issues such as education, health care, immigration, systemic racism, housing, and access to food in what many Kansans refer to as “food deserts” throughout our state.
The national bus tour launched March 23 in Charleston, South Carolina, on the 50th anniversary of the historic Charleston hospital strike. Throughout the tour, organizers will sign up poor people, clergy, and activists for a June Poor People’s Moral Action Congress in Washington, D.C.
Calendar of events below:
APR. 7, 2PM CT – Hays Public Library, 1205 Main St., Hays.
Join Hays community members as they share personal stories of life with low-wage jobs, living with a disability on a fixed income, unstable housing and more. The KS Poor People’s Campaign will also be leading a discussion on the the realistic effects of system poverty, racism, the war economy, ecological devastation and the distorted moral narrative.
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APR. 2, 6:30PM CT – Trinity United Methodist Church, 1602 N Main St, Hutchinson.
Come join us to hear your friends and neighbors of Hutchinson speak to their reality of low wages, discrimination, and life & death without healthcare. Facilitated group discussions will be held on these issues, along with a Call to Action.Organized by Hutchinson community members and supported by the Poor People’s Campaign.
APR. 11, TIME TBA – Location TBA, Dodge City.
Join Dodge City and surrounding area community members as they share personal stories of life with low-wage jobs, lack of insurance, living with a disability on a fixed income, high cost of housing, inadequate polling places, immigration, and more. There will be short presentations and group discussion!
APR. 16, 7PM CT – Wesley House, 411 E 12thSt., Pittsburg.
Read more on the Kansas Poor People’s Campaign in Kansas over the last year.
More than 20 cited in Kansas protest against poverty
Police arrest 18 protesting in Kansas official’s office
Police arrest more protestors near Kansas Capitol
16 arrested for blocking door to Kansas governor’s office
Poor People’s Campaign Aiming To Mobilize Change in Kansas, Nationwide
Background
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival is co-organized by Repairers of the Breach, a social justice organization founded by the Rev. Barber; the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary; and hundreds of local and national grassroots groups across the country.
In 2018, the campaign waged 40 days of direct action, marking the most expansive wave of nonviolent civil disobedience in U.S. history, calling attention to the issues facing the nation’s poor and disenfranchised communities. More than 30,000 people participated in over 200 direct actions at statehouses from coast-to-coast and in Washington, D.C. Over 3,000 people participated in nonviolent civil disobedience.
For the past two years, leaders of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival have carried out a listening tour in dozens of states across this nation, meeting with tens of thousands of people from El Paso, Texas, to Marks, Mississippi, to South Charleston, West Virginia. Led by the Revs. Barber and Theoharis, the campaign has gathered testimonies from hundreds of poor people and listened to their demands for a better society.
A Poor People’s Campaign Moral Agenda, announced last year, was drawn from this listening tour, while an audit of America conducted with allied organizations, including the Institute for Policy Studies and the Urban Institute, showed that, in many ways, we are worse off than we were in 1968: 23 states have passed racist voter suppression laws; 140 million people live in poverty; each year more than 250,000 people die in the United States from poverty and related issues; and the share of national income going towards the top 1 percent of earners has nearly doubled.