Poor People’s Campaign Hits Three Weeks of Actions

May 30, 2018 | Originally published in Medium

For the third consecutive week, the Pennsylvania Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival headed to the State Capitol Building to demand an end to poverty, racism, militarism, and ecological devastation. This week, the campaign focused on militarism: the war economy and gun violence.

John Stoner, Akron Mennonite Church, who gave the blessing at the end of the program for the PA-PPC on Tuesday, May 29.

On Monday evening, May 28, just like the two weeks before it, dozens of people from all over the state traveled to Harrisburg, to spend the night sleeping on a church floor, to prepare for the next day’s action at the Capitol for the Pennsylvania Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.

The evening and hours before each week’s afternoon rally are spent painting banners, learning songs and chants, preparing communications literature, prepping speeches, and in political education study.

“The Poor Peoples Campaign is about building bridges between the divisions that our society enforces and building community,” said Rabbi Michael Pollack, a logistics volunteer with PA-PPC, “When we eat together, sing together, organize together, and sleep under the same roof with humility, we create that beloved community.”

On the way to the State Capitol Building on May 29, Jake Butterly, a volunteer with Put People First! PA and the theomusicologist for the PA-PPC, leads the crowd in a chant.

After lunch and a discussion on nonviolent action, 100 poor people, clergy and advocates marched to the statehouse Tuesday afternoon from a nearby church, to call on lawmakers to demilitarize local police departments, curb gun violence and increase funding of programs that aid the poor.

Tuesday’s protest highlighted how our government prioritizes the war economy over programs to eradicate poverty and help veterans. Music and chanting filled the rotunda of the capitol, with participants carrying signs and banners that read “The War Economy is Immoral,” “Fund Our Community — Stop Funding War”, and “Honor Dr. King — End Poverty, Racism and War”.

Hope Koss, a veteran with Put People First! PA and the PA-PPC, speaking on Tuesday, May 29 in Harrisburg.

Twenty years ago, I was a girl who grew up in poverty and knew that college would be out of reach,” said Hope Koss, a veteran and Healthcare Rights Committee co-coordinator with Put People First! PA in Johnstown. “I listened to the Navy recruiter’s sales pitch, and I signed up that day. But they found every reason possible not to allow me to get either the signing bonus or the G.I. Bill. Why do we still have veterans and service members without proper housing and healthcare? Why is overall care lacking so badly that an average of 22 veterans per day decide that life is no longer worth living? We must demand that our young men and women stop being sent into senseless wars manufactured for the sake of building up the war economy.”

Protesters’ demands included cutting off the flood of military grade weapons left over from the Pentagon’s wars into local police departments and communities, escalating violence against poor communities. Today, young Black males are nine times more likely to be killed by police officers than other Americans.

Keith Schenk, with One Love Philly Guns Down and PA-PPC, speaking n Tuesday, May 29 in Harrisburg.

“We have had so many countless years of gun violence in our communities,” said Keith Q. Schenck of in Philadelphia. “In 2000, my nephew was gunned down by an individual with an AK-47 Assault weapon of mass destruction. My older cousin was gunned down on his front porch at the age of 68 years old. Also we need to talk about how the militarization of law enforcement contributes to gun violence in our communities. Law enforcement has way past exceeded their bounds with unjustified homicide of our nation’s men, women and children, and we are the ones to hold them accountable.”

With 101 mass shootings in the U.S. so far in 2018, activists also drew the connection between the war economy and the mass proliferation of guns on our streets. They demanded a ban on assault rifles and a ban on the easy access to firearms.

Participants also spoke out against the global dimensions of the war economy. A minute of silence was observed for Claudia Patricia Gómez Gonzáles, a Guatemalan teen girl killed by US border patrol last week, and 10 month old Layla Ghandour, the youngest of those killed in Gaza two weeks ago by the Israeli military.

Marta Guttenberg of Jewish Voices for Peace, speaking on Tuesday, May 29 in Harrisburg. Photo Credit: Robin M. Eichenlaub

“Israel receives the largest dollar amount of foreign aid from the US out of any country,” said Marta Guttenberg of Jewish Voices for Peace in Philadelphia. The war economy is killing our Palestinian brothers and sisters. We ask our government to stop military aid to Israel while it is being used illegally against Palestinians, and to support the right of Palestinians to self-determination.”

In his landmark speech on militarism at Riverside Church in 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the leaders of the original Poor People’s Campaign said: “If we do not act, we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark, and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.”

The Pennsylvania Poor People’s Campaign will return to Harrisburg on Monday, June 4 to demand the right to health and healthy planet.