The Peoples Center is part of the Poor People's Campaign network. We will be participating in the weekly actions every Monday from May Day to the Summer Solstice and will be offering some livestreams of the national events. For the latest information e-mail: peoplesworld@pobox.com Here is what happened at the launch at the state capitol on Monday May 14:
Holding signs and banners calling
for an end to poverty, over 100 union, faith and community leaders
marched from the Legislative Office Building at the state capitol in
Hartford down the street to Capitol Avenue on Monday, May 14.
Sixteen people carried their
banners into the street and locked arms, blocking traffic, in the
first of six weeks of nonviolent actions across the country organized
by the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
The 40 days of protest reignites
the poor peoples' campaign that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was
organizing when he was assassinated while supporting striking
sanitation workers fifty years ago.
Under the leadership of Rev.
William Barber coalitions have formed in 39 states to fight systemic
poverty and racism, ecological devastation and militarism and the war
economy.
Fast Food workers in the Fight
for 15, teachers union leaders and faith leaders were among those who
took part in the civil disobedience in Hartford. As they blocked the
street police arrested them one by one and loaded them into two
police vehicles.
“This campaign may have been
inspired by historic events fifty years ago,” said AFT Connecticut
President Jan Hochadel, who previously taught in the state's
technical high schools. “Yet, in 2018, we're witnessing the
lessons of non-violent, civil disobedience across the country, from
West Virginia to Arizona and Oklahoma to Puerto Rico. Union members
are putting themselves on the line — and winning."
"They’re winning not just
for themselves — they’re winning justice for their students,
their patients, the residents they serve and their communities,”
Hochadel concluded in a speech prior to taking arrest along with
several of her union colleagues.
“Our commitment is to keep our
issues front and center in the public discourse. No more will
we allow statewide elections to happen without real dialogue
regarding the poor, the disenfranchised and marginalized.” says
Bishop John Selders, Tri Chair of CT Poor People’s Campaign and
director of Moral Monday CT, the state's campaign coordinator.
Protests will be held each Monday
through mid-June. For information visit poorpeoplescampaign.org
