As Abigail McCaulley made her way toward the Jefferson City Statehouse, she and five others carried a coffin. They set it down at the doors of the Capitol building before filing in. The demonstration was part of the Missouri Poor People’s Campaign assembly at the Missouri Statehouse on Saturday, March 2 to demand action against what the campaign calls “death by poverty.”
“I'm here because I'm affected by it as well,” McCaulley said. “It's important that people have the resources they need to be able to survive in this economy.”
The assembly kicked off the campaign's 40 weeks of action to mobilize low-wage workers in the state, encouraging them to leverage their votes.
“Our government needs to know that we mean business,” said Henry Robinson IV, an attendee and speaker at the assembly. “It's time for them to stop being the way they are, and we need a change. And that's why I'm here today.”
There are over 800 poverty related deaths per day in the United States, according to the organization. To highlight this issue of poverty-related lives lost, Rev. Dr. Rodney Williams said chapters across the country will be doing different events over the next 10 months.
“I do not believe that you can preach the gospel of Jesus Christ without being in the streets fighting for the poor,” Williams said. “And so what this does, it gives me a platform to do in public what I preach about in church on Sundays.”
The Poor People’s Campaign and its leaders want to mobilize poor and low wage workers across the country to vote and take action for change.
“The people that are impacted the most by those policies are the ones that are closest to the solutions as well,” Rev. Mindy Fugarino said. “And their votes are just as valuable as anybody else's vote.”
“We know what you're going through. We live in the same area. Some of us are neighbors, some of us are co-workers,” Robinson said. “And we want you guys to help us get this going and keep it going. Because once we do, they can't stop. There's no stopping it at all.”
