Poor People’s Campaign rallies in Washington

WASHINGTON — Thousands gathered in downtown Washington, D.C., Saturday for a rally to call attention to poor and low-income people disproportionately affected by a wide range of issues, including those involving health care, housing, gun violence, abortion rights and labor conditions.

Participants began at Freedom Plaza and marched along Pennsylvania Avenue for the Poor People’s & Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington. Some carried signs with messages such as “Homes not drones,” “Let’s smash capitalism together,” and “Reparations not occupation.”

With gospel music blasting from the stage and a strong breeze blowing, they rallied within sight of the Capitol. It was a crowd with a diverse mix of Black and white, Latino and Asian, young families with babies and retirees, union members and college students. The speakers cycling from the stage addressed an equally large breadth of issues, from environmental concerns to challenges faced by indigenous peoples.

“We are not an insurrection,” said the Rev. William J. Barber II, a North Carolina preacher who is co-chair of the organizing group, the Poor People’s Campaign, a resurgence of the movement organized by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. before his death in 1968.

“But we are a restoration!” This is an urgent moment, Barber said before the event, in which poor and low-income people are disproportionately affected in areas such as health care, housing, gun violence, abortion rights, labor conditions, white supremacy and racism, immigration, the climate crisis and voting restrictions. Inflation is also rising at its fastest pace in four decades, leaving no respite for people who were already struggling to buy groceries, pay for gas or make rent.

Barber has said the movement aims to bring together people across race, ethnicity, religion and region, as King’s work did, to “shift the moral narrative” and mobilize a voting bloc of poor people who can influence policy everywhere from their hometowns to the U.S. Capitol and White House.

Those who joined the rally represented a variety of groups and causes. On the side of Pennsylvania Avenue, young people who are part of the Party for Socialism & Liberation showed support.

“What Dr. King called the third evil was the fight against militarism, and we’re out here to honor that legacy in that regard,” said Benjamin Zinevich, a 25-year-old member of the party.

Members of the North Carolina chapter of White Coats for Social and Health Justice, a group of doctors and medical professionals, traveled to the Washington event to lend their support.

“Poverty is a public health problem,” said Howard Eisenson, a doctor from Durham, N.C.

Walter Hales, 71, from Pittsburgh, joined the Poor People’s Campaign last September and is also part of the Black Political Empowerment Project. He believes advocating for those in poverty is the most prevalent issue of the day.

“It’s an intersectional issue that energizes racism and causes families to fall apart,” Hales said. “But it affects education and hurts those who can’t participate in a democracy.”

Barber’s organization is advocating for what he calls a Third Reconstruction, an agenda that includes changing the poverty measure to reflect current costs of living, providing paid family and medical leave for all workers, ending all evictions, and raising the minimum wage.

Astrid Riecken/ Washington Post contributor Participants of the Poor People’s Campaign rally in Washington, D.C. The march sought to call attention to poor and low-income people disproportionately affected by a wide range of issues, including health care, housing and gun violence.