By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer
While it’s important for people to have a seat at the table when their needs are being discussed, they can’t always afford to be there.
Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign leaders are planning to attend a mass march being hosted by national founder Rev. William Barber this summer, and they want the very people they’re fighting for to accompany them. The Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign is raising funds to take 10-15 impacted and low-wage workers to Rev. Barber’s June 18 mass rally in Washington, DC.
“Impacted people are most impacted by poverty, systemic racism, ecological devastation or environmental justice, all of what they call ‘the evils.’ They’re much more impacted than I would be, than most people would be, so they need to be there so their voices can be heard,” said Faye Kennedy Wilson, an organizer with the Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign.
Co-chaired by Rev. Barber and Rev. Liz Theoharis, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival is a fusion movement led by poor and low income people of all backgrounds who are working to show people that poverty and low wealth are not personal choices, but policy choices. The Poor People’s Campaign is fighting to make policies that fully address poverty and low wealth from the bottom up to protect and expand voting rights and the fundamental infrastructure of American democracy.
The Sacramento Poor People’s Campaign traveled to the last march the national organization held in 2019 before the coronavirus pandemic. They took 10 or so people then as well.
“They were people who if we hadn’t paid their way wouldn’t have been able to go,” Wilson Kennedy shared. “One person had never been on a plane and two people had never been out of California.”
The activists will need to raise $3,000 per person who cannot pay for the trip on their own. Donations would cover air and ground transportation, lodging and meals, Wilson Kennedy shared.
She wants locals to witness up close, what it looks like when thousands of people come together from all across the country. “Oftentimes poor people don’t think communities care about them. Some communities don’t,” Wilson Kennedy said.
There are eight regional Poor People’s Campaign coordinating committees throughout the state. The goal for the California Poor People’s Campaign is to raise money for 100 people across the state to attend, with each region, like Sacramento, deciding how many they will have in their delegation.
Donations can be made online at https://www.etina.org/ca-ppc. Checks, made payable to fiscal sponsor Environmentalism Through Inspiration & Non-Violent Action (ETINA), with CA PPC in the memo line, can also be sent to ETINA, 578 Washington Blvd. #395, Marina Del Rey, CA 90292. Attn: CA PPC. Donations are tax-deductible.