We opened this morning in Harpers Ferry with a prayer from two local West Virginia faith leaders: “Creator, how grateful we are to stand here on holy ground. ... Together we ask for a new birth of freedom, a just share of the wealth of this land for all.”
Katrina Fernandez stood with us—and six of her children—today to say: “I’m concerned that my children are being poisoned by a factory that’s allowed to just let chemicals go in the air. ... We can’t take any more stuff in our bodies.” #PoorPeoplesCampaign
Fr. Andy Switzer from St. Agnes Catholic Church in Shepherdstown, WV: “It’s easy for me to be with you today with Pope Francis @Pontifex who stands as a church that’s not afraid to take to the streets. … May this march today be a new beginning.” #MoralMarch
Harpers Ferry, WV, is the birthplace of the @NAACP. George Rutherford, president of the @JC_WV_NAACP, joined us today to say: “Our legislators have turned their backs on us. But I hope your presence here today will really help us to move forward.”
My #PoorPeoplesCampaign co-chair, Rev. Dr. @liztheo: “It’s an honor to be here today on this sacred ground, where a movement has been growing for generations! Where people—Black and white and indigenous—have come together and said, ‘It doesn’t have to be this way!’”
“What we know from Harpers Ferry is when 21 people—a multiracial delegation of people—rush in and start an uprising for change, that good things come from that! That powerful things come from that!” —Rev. Dr. @liztheo#PoorPeoplesCampaign#MoralMarch
In a very real sense, West Virginia today is our Selma. The nation needs to hear from West Virginia. That’s why we’re here this week, to draw attention to the injustices of the policy violence of Sen. Joe Manchin on this state and on the nation.
We’re doing this #MoralMarch on West Virginia to draw the attention of the nation here. And on Saturday, June 18, in Washington, D.C., we want a mighty contingent of folks from the hood to the hollers of West Virginia to be there.
It’s wrong to do policies that rob people of their lives. The truth is we love @Sen_JoeManchin as a human being, but we despise his policies, because his policies are full of hate and meanness.
He voted to block living wages that would’ve lifted 310,000 West Virginians out of poverty. He blocked the #BuildBackBetter plan, which would’ve helped WV miners, the environment, families by providing paid medical leave, etc. That’s just mean.
We actually want @Sen_JoeManchin to be a great senator. We would like to see him be a consequential senator for righteousness. We would love to see him do what Sen. Byrd did and change and become a hero of the things he once fought!
We have a responsibility to tell @Sen_JoeManchin the truth: Your soul is at stake! Matthew 25 says you’re going to be judged, and all of that judgment doesn’t come when you die.
We’re here in West Virginia to say that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce can’t run this state. Even if they don’t change right now, we’re going to be the sign of change! Everything Manchin is blocking is eventually going to happen.
I don’t know if we will live to see the change come, but we are the sign that the change is coming and it’s not that far away, because folks are uniting from all across this country.
West Virginia is marching! Join us online every day this week starting at 10am ET / 7am PT for the Harpers Ferry-to-Martinsburg #MoralMarch on West Virginia: breachrepairers.org/livestream
🎶 Deep in my heart I do believe,
we’ll keep marching on today! 🎶
Day 1 of the Harpers Ferry-to-Martinsburg #MoralMarch on West Virginia is a wrap, but the @WestVirginiaPPC will be back out again tomorrow (Wednesday 4/6) at 10am ET to continue the march. #PoorPeoplesCampaign
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
This toxic polluting plant is just a stone’s throw from an elementary school, because in WV it’s illegal to put a school next to a plant but not the other way around! (Photo: @stevepavey)
🎶 Somebody’s been hurting our children and our planet and it’s gone on far too long, and we won’t be silent anymore 🎶
SPECIAL REPORT: The Poor People’s Campaign releases “The Poor People’s Pandemic Report,” a generationally significant report that uncovers things that will shock the nation’s conscience and the political establishment. twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1…
54 years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered as he begged this nation to address poverty, racism, and militarism. It is shameful that today we have 140 million poor and low-wealth people in this nation.
Even in a global pandemic, there hasn’t been a systematic assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on poor and low-income communities. COVID-19 data collection does not include data on poverty, income, or occupation, alongside race and pandemic outcomes.
Lindsay Graham’s argument about why Democrats don’t accept so-called Black conservatives proves why we can’t make this appointment about race, as Thurgood Marshall and Pauli Murray noted. It has to be about judicial philosophy, not just skin color.
Graham is more dangerous to this republic than Trump, because he’s arrogant, full of lies, and great at twisting words in a hearing. He could not survive the same questions he puts to others. He’s more like a Fox News commentator than a person seeking truth.
And Sen. Graham is the best example of a white supremacist attitude that asks questions where he already has predetermined answers, formed by his warped ideology, which he gets to display at a Senate hearing in a way he could never do in a real court or in a fair hearing process.