Pamela Rush of rural Tyler, Alabama, recently passed away from complications of COVID-19. But far before the coronavirus infected her body, the Poor People’s Campaign activist was battling the viruses of structural racism and poverty.
No chapter of the national Poor People's Campaign has faced bigger barriers in confronting state officials than Kentucky's, but it's soldiering on with a focus on voter mobilization and political education.
The organization's special rapporteur on extreme poverty presented a report last month documenting his disturbing findings in states including Alabama, Georgia and West Virginia.
The workers said their arrests were meant to honor the "Charleston Five" — union members placed under house arrest nearly 20 years ago for taking part in protests to save union jobs at the Port of Charleston.
Jimmy Collier was an organizer-musician with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the first Poor People's Campaign. The songs he composed and recorded 50 years ago continue to inspire activists today.
Amid intensifying wealth inequality and extreme poverty, Bishop William Barber of North Carolina's Moral Movement and other clergy and organizers will kick off a nationwide effort on Dec. 4 to carry on the work of the first Poor People's Campaign, launched on the same date 50 years earlier by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
