Ending poverty: Waterspirit joins Poor People’s Campaign for June 21st assembly

Waterspirit joins diverse coalition building a 3rd Reconstruction to end poverty; uniting for a major in-person & online assembly on June 21st: The 2021 National Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly kicks off a 365-day campaign leading to a massive march & assembly in DC in 2022

WHAT: Waterspirit is joining the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival for a Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly that is both in person in Raleigh, North Carolina, and online from across the country. The PPC’s demands include: updating the country’s antiquated poverty measure; the expansion of voting rights and the Voting Rights Act; a living wage and the guaranteed right of workers to form and join unions; healthcare for all; infrastructure improvements that build from the bottom up; a guarantee of safe and quality housing; reparations for Indigenous people; a guaranteed adequate income; making public welfare programs available to all immigrants and guaranteed high-quality pre-K-12 education for all, along with free higher education.

Currently, 44 million people are living with water systems that have violated the Safe Drinking Water Act, and approximately 540,000 households lack access to complete, adequate plumbing. To address this problem, this June 21 event will demand clean, safe water for all through ending utility shutoffs and by improving water and sanitation infrastructure. It will also call on the US to embrace a bold, equitable climate agenda, ensuring a livable future for our planet. By working at the intersection of poverty and environmental injustice, Waterspirit and the Poor People’s Campaign seek to lift all boats with this rising tide.

WHO: Waterspirit is joining this call to action by the Poor People’s Campaign national co-chairs, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis. Waterspirit’s community of spiritually-attuned water protectors will join poor, low-wealth and other impacted people and religious, moral and labor leaders along with economists, musicians, cultural artists, Hollywood actors/activists, lawyers and public health experts. The hybrid online/in-person mass assembly also will include activists from Poor People’s Campaign coordinating committees in 45 states, 200 organizing partners and over 1,500 clergy members of the PPC Prophetic Council.

WHEN: 5:30 p.m. ET/2:30p.m. Pacific on Monday, June 21

WHERE: In person: Halifax Mall, 300 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh, North Carolina. Online:  www.3rdReconstruction.org

WHY: On June 21, the Poor People’s Campaign will launch a campaign to fight forward for 365 days toward a massive, generationally transformative Moral March on Washington and Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly on June 18, 2022. ** The June 2021 event will be Spanish-language interpreted, ASL interpreted & captioned. **

BACKGROUND: Nationally, more than 140 million poor and low-income people live in the United States, or 43% of the country’s population, and that was before the COVID-19 pandemic, and 250,000 die each year from poverty. Among those 140 million people are: 52.2% or 39 million children (below 18);  41.9% or 21 million elders (above 65); 42.6% or 65.8 million men; 45% or 74.2 million women; 60.4% or 26 million Black people; 64.1% or 38 million Latinx people; 40.8% or 8 million Asian people; 58.9% or 2.14 million Native/Indigenous people;  33.5% or 66 million white people. The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, with organizing committees in 45 states, is building a moral fusion movement to address the five interlocking injustices of systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, the war economy and militarism and a distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism.

 For additional information:  

Twitter: @unitethepoor / Instagram: @poorpeoplescampaign / Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/ANewPPC

Waterspirit is a nonprofit center for spirituality and ecology based on occupied Lenni Lenape land in Rumson, NJ. As a ministry of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, we are called to respond to the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor. To get involved with our advocacy work, email: water@waterspirit.org

Bring Waterspirit to Your Community

The Waterspirit team loves to bring our educational programming to schools, community groups, and more. Whether you’re looking for eco-spiritual programming, more information about water, or ways to take action in your community, Waterspirit can create a program that is appropriate for you. Programming can be in-person or virtual. Click here to download a pdf highlighting some of our offerings. Write to us at water@waterspirit.org to learn more.