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http://www.kwru.org/updates/kingmarchcall-intl.doc
A Call To Action
??There are millions of poor people in this country who have very little, or even nothing, to lose. If they can be helped to take action together, they will do so with a freedom and a power that will be a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life??
– Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The Poor People?s Economic Human Rights Campaign calls for a national Poor People?s March for Economic Human Rights.
This year marks the 35th Anniversary of Martin Luther King?s historic Poor People?s Campaign, for which he gave his life. As our economic human rights continue to be violated, we know that the work of Martin Luther King is not finished. Through this summer?s march, the Poor People?s Economic Human Rights Campaign is continuing the struggle to make King?s vision of true equality and peace a reality in this nation and around the world. Today, 35 years later, the situation of poor Americans has only deteriorated and it is time to march on Washington again.
We are marching now because more and more American families are being forced into poverty everyday. We are marching because the growing healthcare crisis has left 71 million Americans without healthcare this year. We are marching because the majority of the 80 million poor people in America are our children. We are marching because, after decades of downsizing and free trade agreements, millions of Americans have lost their jobs, homes, farms and livelihoods. We are marching because we live in the richest country in the world, yet our people die poor in the streets everyday.
Our government and corporations have denied everyday Americans the rights to the most basic necessities of life ? food, clothing, housing, healthcare, living wage jobs and education. These rights were guaranteed to all of us by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights over 50 years ago, yet we still suffer without them. We have been left out of the electoral process and left behind by our elected leaders. And now, we all suffer from the terror of economic human rights violations ? the fear and pain of living with no health coverage, of living in indecent housing, of being unable to find employment.
The Poor People?s March will bring together poor whites, blacks, latinos and those of all races to demand an end to poverty and economic human rights violations in the United States and around the world. As we march, we will strengthen our relationships, develop new leaders and share our strategies, struggles and stories. We will educate those we meet and those we march with about the legacy of Martin Luther King, about economic human rights, about democracy and voting, about the FTAA and about the vision, strategies and tactics of building a movement, led by the poor, to end poverty. As we are determined to create a broad-based movement for economic human rights we will work in coordination with labor unions, social workers, educators, students, musicians, artists, congregations and all those who are concerned with economic justice. We will be joined in our march by the international community in a show of unity of poor internationally worldwide.
All we have left is our voice. Please join us this August in making it heard. We will kickoff the Poor People?s March for Economic Human Rights on August 2, 2003 in Marks Mississippi. From there, we will march and caravan through the region until we arrive in Washington DC on August 23rd, when we hold a historic march on our nation?s capital. Then we will establish a week-long tent city in Washington, DC with educational and cultural events and protest. The poor of the United States have been ?disappeared? for too long. All we have left is our voice and we can no longer afford to suffer in silence. Please join us this August in making our call for economic human rights heard!
A SPECIAL CALL TO THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY:
We make an urgent call, a cry of pain and of hope from the forcibly silenced throats and the invisibilized struggles of the poor, the homeless, the landless and the unemployed of the United States. The struggle of the poor of the US is the struggle of the poor internationally against impoverishment and militarization. The power of the United States to impose its economic model and its military control around the world depends on the lack of consciousness and independent political organization among the victims of the same system within the belly of the beast. To stop the US government, we must build a multi-racial movement based in those who have less and less stake in this system ? the millions of people within the belly of the beast who have more in common with the poor in Mexico, Canada, France, Iraq, South Africa and India then with Bill Gates or George W. Bush.
Dr. King recognized this and gave his life to building a multi-racial movement of the poor in the United States, in unity with the dispossessed worldwide. With King?s assassination 35 years ago, the last effort to build a poor people?s movement in the US was destroyed. It is not until now, with the development of the Poor People?s Economic Human Rights Campaign, spearheaded by the Kensington Welfare Rights Union, that the possibility for this kind of movement to grow has existed. We believe that organizing the poor and building this movement in the United States will have a strategic significance for the rest of the world.
We call on the international community to support the National Poor People?s March for Economic Human Rights in the United States this August. On August 23, 2003, we will enter the seat of power of the United States, Washington DC after three weeks of marching and organizing through the South of the US. As we march on Washington DC to protest economic human rights violations committed by our government and by corporations, we will need the eyes of the world to be on us, as we, the poor of the United States, carry our struggle and your struggle to the heart of the empire. We are asking the world community to stand in UNITY with the movement of the poor of the United States on this day, by holding an INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION in unity with the Poor People?s March for Economic Human Rights. We call on you to see building this movement as part of your own struggle. Please stand with us in whatever way you can.
Visit our website at www.kwru.org for more information or contact kwru@kwru.org.
