Indiana Poor People’s Campaign held a press conference June 7 asking Indiana legislators to support the Third Reconstruction resolution, a 19-page document addressing issues of poverty, systemic racism and low wages in the U.S.
Standing near Rep. Andre Carson’s office, Trevor Richardson, 34, spoke about his lifelong struggles with poverty and homelessness.
“I see this campaign as very instrumental in pushing for a lot of the moral changes that are going to help end things like homelessness and poverty,” Richardson said.
Richardson is currently homeless and is an advocate within the Indiana homeless community. He believes the Indiana Poor People’s Campaign will hold lawmakers accountable for providing solutions to poverty.
Over the summer, the organization plans to visit all nine congressional districts in Indiana to encourage legislators to sign the resolution.
Poor People’s Campaign member Louis Vurgess Jr., 75, believes it is important to take care of the less fortunate. He said when it comes to social and economic justice, it’s our morality that makes us “concerned with whether our neighbor has food, whether he has clothes, whether he has shelter.”
While singing songs such as “This Little Light of Mine” and chanting “everybody’s got a right to live” the organization explained why the Third Reconstruction resolution is needed.
The resolution is a response to the millions of people within the nation living in poverty and calls for legislation on living wages, affordable health care, voting rights and immigration reform.
A National Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers Assembly will be June 21 in Raleigh, North Carolina, where the one-year campaign, Moral March on Washington, will be announced. The Moral March will be June 18, 2022, in Washington, D.C.
Richardson hopes the campaign will provide protection to people living in poverty and relieve some of their daily stresses.
“I would like to see what I believe the American Dream is really about, which is everybody having the right to live, not just struggle to survive,” said Richardson.
Contact staff writer Abriana Herron at (317) 924-5143. Follow her on Twitter @abri_onyai.
Third Reconstruction resolution
Indiana Poor People’s Campaign wants a congressional resolution for the millions of people living in poverty. The organization would like policies addressing the following issues:
- Update the poverty measures to get a true accounting for who is poor to expand the nation’s social welfare programs and meet the needs of poor citizens.
- Enact living wages and protect the right to form and join unions.
- Provide universal single payer health care and guarantee that everybody has the right to housing, welfare, water and diverse public education.
- Relieve debts that cannot be paid, including student, housing and medical debts.
- Expand and protect our voting rights to save our democracy.
- Ensure the rights of Indigenous and tribal nations.
- Establish national commissions on truth, racial justice transformations and reparations.
- Enact comprehensive and just immigration reforms.
- Embrace a climate agenda that prioritizes the poor and those impacted more by climate disasters.
- Demilitarize our foreign policies, borders and policing.
- Redirect military spending, implement fair taxes and break free from decades of trickle-down economics.
Source: Indiana Poor People’s Campaign
