Interviewed by Teri McDowell Ott
You’ve been involved in organizing among poor and low-income communities for decades, working with organizations such as the National Union of the Homeless, the National Welfare Rights Union, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, Domestic Workers United and many more. What led you to this work?
I was raised in a movement family. My father is a historian, democracy defender, and civil libertarian who helped expose the abuses of the FBI. My mother is the daughter of Armenian genocide survivors and a lifelong member of the Presbyterian Church who organized her life around the fight for human rights, inter-religious understanding, and the abolition of poverty, racism and war.
My family raised me to see my faith directly linked to social justice. In the word of Micah 6:8 — what does the Lord require but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God? I was active in my church and the movement from a young age: campaigning for a nuclear-free world, planning anti-racist day camps, raising awareness about hunger and homelessness, organizing our church to become the first peacemaking church in the Milwaukee Presbytery, serving as Sunday school teacher at 13, and ordained as a deacon at 16.
I got involved in grassroots anti-poverty organizing with the National Union of the Homeless and Nation Welfare Rights Union my first night at college. From these leaders, many of whom were poor and homeless themselves, I was introduced to ways poor and dispossessed people built power and organized — the anti-slavery societies of the abolitionist movement and the Reconstruction coalitions after the Civil War, the Bonus Army, Unemployed Councils and Sharecroppers Unions of the 1930s, and the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign launched by Rev. Dr. [Martin Luther] King, the National Welfare Rights Organization, Appalachian activists and more.
In 2018, you co-founded the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival with the Rev. William Barber II. How did this campaign get its start, and in what ways is it tied to the Poor People’s Campaign championed by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968?
It was from poor and homeless leaders with the National Union of the Homeless and National Welfare Rights Union that I learned about the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968. Some of the grassroots organizers who mentored me had been involved in this last crusade of Rev. Dr. King’s life — from living at Resurrection City, to organizing the solidarity day action led by the National Welfare Rights Organization and Coretta Scott King, to helping form the agenda and policy prescriptions that the ’68 Poor People’s Campaign put forward.
In 2013, I co-founded the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice with the intent of building a new Poor People’s Campaign. In 2017, the Kairos Center and Repairers of the Breach co-founded the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival with Rev. Dr. William Barber. Our two organizations have co-anchored the campaign ever since with state coordinating committees in dozens of states nationwide. We launched on the 50th anniversary of the 1968 campaign with the commitment not just to commemorate Dr. King’s work and legacy but to carry it forward today.
When we launched the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, with the largest wave of nonviolent civil disobedience in more than 35 state capitals over 40 days of action, we were clear that even if Dr. King hadn’t called for such a campaign 50 years ago, we would still need one now. We understood that with 140 million people poor and low-income in the United States – 40% of the U.S. population – and with voting rights, environmental justice, and the rights of women, LGBTQI+ and immigrants under attack, we needed to unite and organize poor and low-income people into a power to be reckoned with.
We studied the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign. We learned we needed actions and activists organizing in state capitals all over the country, not solely in Washington, D.C., that we needed many people deeply committed to the cause, rather than only a few national leaders, and we needed time to shift the narrative about poverty and justice, impacting policies and elections, and building power of the poor.
How has poverty in America changed since the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968?
When we launched the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, we commissioned and published a study on the state of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the war economy, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism today. This audit, which was called “The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America Fifty Years Since the Poor People’s Campaign Challenged Racism, Poverty, the War Economy/Militarism and Our National Morality,” revealed there were 60% more poor people today than in 1968, that in many places people had fewer voting rights than 50 years before, that the nation spent 53 cents of every federal discretionary dollar on the military and less than 15 cents on health care, living wage jobs and anti-poverty programs.
[The audit] also showed that religious extremists, especially White Christian nationalists, were distorting the faith with real-life consequences.
Poverty is a leading cause of death in the richest country in the world. The minimum wage hasn’t been raised in over a decade — and there is no county, city or town where a person working full time at minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment.
Poverty is a leading cause of death in the richest country in the world. The minimum wage hasn’t been raised in over a decade — and there is no county, city or town where a person working full time at minimum wage can afford a two-bedroom apartment. Tens of millions of people are without health care – even after a public health pandemic that plainly showed that the health care crisis in the U.S. impacts the whole society, that even one person without health care makes everyone else more vulnerable – and millions are being abandoned amid abundance. Poverty is an emergency and we need to build up the people power and political will to end it. There is no scarcity of resources in the nation and world, but there is a scarcity of political will and moral consciousness to do the right thing and abolish poverty.
King spoke frequently about the three evils of society: racism, materialism and militarism. The term “intersectionality” wasn’t used in King’s day. How do you understand the ways poverty intersects with other societal evils?
In the Poor People’s Campaign, King proposed uniting and organizing thousands of poor people from all over the country into a force to be reckoned with. He talked about how connected and interlocking racism, poverty and war were and that to address any one, the country had to address them all. He suggested that the “Achilles’ heel” of racism, poverty, and militarism in these yet-to-be United States was to unite millions of poor people across race, geography, and concern into a Poor People’s Campaign to lift the load of poverty. King proclaimed that the Vietnam War had turned the War on Poverty into a skirmish, and it would take drawing poor people together to stop such cruel manipulation of those in poverty.
Now, the world is on the brink of nuclear war, wages are historically low, climate change is wreaking havoc on the poor first and worst, while inequality only widens and costs of living rise. King’s call to address the tripartite evils of systemic racism, economic exploitation and war is more timely than ever.
The most pressing problems of our time cannot be tackled separately. Attacks on voting rights are connected to the attacks on basic needs like water, health care and living wages as well as the shift towards the incarceration and criminalization of the poor, with all their distinct effects across race, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation.
Systemic racism allows us to deny the humanity of others.
By denying the humanity of others, we are given permission to exploit or exclude people economically.
By exploiting and excluding people economically, we are emboldened to abuse our military powers and, through violence and war, control resources.
This quest to control resources could potentially destroy our entire ecosystem and everything living in it. And we see how the current moral narrative of our nation both justifies this cycle and distracts us from it.
When we look at the predicament of the poor, it is clear that poor people are impacted first and worst by climate chaos, pandemics and other emergencies, and attacks and marginalization around race, gender, sexuality, geography and more.
Our Christian faith offers us a vision of Beloved Community, to work toward. What vision is the Poor People’s Campaign working toward? What does the success of this campaign look like on a large and small scale?
I envision a world where all can thrive and not just barely survive. Where racism, bigotry and hate have no place. And where we have no war but live in a society of peace and harmony within and among nations.
Ending poverty and the interlocking injustices of racism, environmental injustice, raging war and militarism, and the heresy of religious extremism, especially White Christian nationalism, is possible. If we raise the federal minimum wage to a living wage, communities, especially poor and low-income ones, would experience a ripple effect as that money is circulated back through the economy faster and further than the billions Congress gives the rich and corporations through tax cuts. We could gain billions or even trillions of dollars from fair taxes on the wealthy, corporations and Wall Street. We could invest in public infrastructure and create more jobs outside of the military that could speed a clean energy transition, which would benefit our country and the planet. We could provide healthcare, housing and education for everyone in this country. After all, feeding people is better for the economy than military spending and it creates a more just and peaceful society.
The night before he was killed trying to build the Poor People’s Campaign, Rev. Dr. King preached: “It’s alright to talk about ‘long white robes over yonder,’ in all of its symbolism. But ultimately people want some suits and dresses and shoes to wear down here. It’s all right to talk about ‘streets flowing with milk and honey,’ but God has commanded us to be concerned about the slums down here, and his children who can’t eat three square meals a day. It’s alright to talk about the new Jerusalem, but one day, God’s preacher must talk about the new New York, the new Atlanta, the new Philadelphia, the new Los Angeles, the new Memphis, Tennessee. This is what we have to do.”
We are living in the midst of a “kairos moment” — a time of great change and transformation, when the old ways of society are dying and new ones are being born. There is an emergency going on that calls for brigades of ambulance drivers willing to nonviolently disrupt the existing order. We are living in a valley of dry bones, like the prophet Ezekiel, and we must cry out, “can these bones live?” In this moment, the sick and uninsured are saying to leaders of faith communities and our politicians, just like the sick leper said to Jesus, “If you choose you can heal me.”
At the Kairos Center, we are committed to building a moral movement, led by the people, uniting across all the lines of historic division.
At the Kairos Center, we are committed to building a moral movement, led by the people, uniting across all the lines of historic division. We are addressing the interlocking injustices of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the war economy. We reject the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. We are choosing life, and truth, and justice, and peace. We are solving basic problems and restructuring our society around the people. And we are advocating for voting rights, universal single-payer healthcare, living wages, immigrant rights, women’s rights, LGBTQ+ rights, affordable housing, quality public education, an end to police violence and the proliferation of guns, a ceasefire in Palestine and an end to war the world over, strong anti-poverty programs, clean air, water and land, and an orientation that centers the poor in our policy decisions. Or as we say in the Poor People’s Campaign, “when we lift from the bottom, everybody rises,” and “we say poverty no more, we want justice for the poor, because everybody has a right to live.”
How can individuals, organizations or churches best help the Poor People’s Campaign? How can we get involved?
We need everyone in the movement! If you’re not already involved in the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, please get involved in the coordinating committee in your state. You can email *yourstatename@poorpeoplescampaign.org. (i.e. michigan@poorpeoplescampaign.org) to get in touch.
The Kairos Center also welcomes all to connect. Please join us at Freedom Church of the Poor, a 1001 New Worshiping Community of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that gathers online at 6 p.m. ET every Sunday (email freedomchurch@kairoscenter.org to get the link or for more information) and for Bible study every Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET. We are offering multiple congregational programs in the coming year as well. Please sign up at kairoscenter.org/subscribe/ to get more information about our Preachers and Teachers Bureau, our Luke 10 Congregational Organizing Program and other movement-building work.
*According to Living Wage, “an analysis of the living wage (as calculated in December 2022 and reflecting a compensation being offered to an individual in 2023), compiling geographically specific expenditure data for food, childcare, health care, housing, transportation, and other necessities, finds that: The living wage in the United States is $25.02 per hour, or $104,077.70 per year in 2022, before taxes for a family of four (two working adults, two children), compared to $24.16, or $100,498.60 in 2021.
“A typical family of four (two working adults, two children) needs to work more than two full-time minimum-wage jobs (a 96-hour work week per working adult) to earn a living wage. Single-parent families need to work almost twice as hard as families with two working adults to make a living wage. A single mother with two children earning the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour needs to work 252 hours per week, the equivalent of almost six full-time minimum-wage jobs, to make a living wage.”
