Poor People’s Campaign Renews Push to Address Poverty, Voting Rights

With the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday occurring earlier this week, Bishop William Barber, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, took the opportunity to demand that President Joe Biden and members of Congress meet with religious leaders and low-wealth people to discuss policies that have kept millions of Americans in poverty.

• “Elected officials on both sides of the aisle…are standing diametrically opposed to the things [King] fought for: addressing systemic poverty, addressing racism, [and] ensuring voter protection,” said Barber in a video message.
• Barber also called out the Moore v. Harper case that originated in North Carolina and could end democracy as we know it, calling it a “nightmare.”
• According to Barber, in the coming weeks the Poor People’s Campaign will send its members to meet with congressional members to urge them to address living wages, voting rights and health care for all in the 118th Congress.

Barber, who grew up in North Carolina, started the Moral Monday movement and served as the head of the NC NAACP, will lead the Center for Public Theology & Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.