Thousands will participate in this historic march and caravan to transform our nation and highlight the urgent need for guaranteed healthcare and housing for everyone in the United States. We are demanding that our government prioritize life over death by allocating some of the tremendous resources at its disposal to provide for the vital human needs of healthcare and housing. Many countries around the world already offer these human rights to their citizens, but the US system reflects a different set of values.
Right now, in the richest country in the world, record numbers of people are experiencing homelessness and poverty while record profits are being made on Wall Street through the help of massive government bailouts for the rich. Poverty, homelessness, and unemployment are skyrocketing while trillions of dollars are being misappropriated to fight wars abroad. Millions of poor people in the US are being incarcerated, abandoned, and attacked by an economic and political system that prioritizes wealth over health and profits over people. We can and must do better.
In the final years of his life Dr. King refocused his vision from racial equality to economic justice, realizing that people of all colors living side-by-side in poverty was far short of a true victory for all people. He launched the Poor People�s Campaign in 1967 to unite poor people of all races to build a massive nonviolent movement to end poverty. He was assassinated for his efforts.
This Easter, The Poor People�s Economic Human Rights Campaign launches the March for Our Lives as a testament of resurrection. Out from the death of natural and unnatural disasters there is rising a poor people�s movement for life. Out from beneath the ruins of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and a devastating earthquake in Haiti, come the singing voices of the poor, the people who were struggling through miserable man-made disasters of poverty and injustice long before the ground literally shook below them. Today, economic inequality is worse than ever, but out of the darkness comes light. From the swelling ranks of the poor, nonviolent troops are organizing and mobilizing for peace and justice. In Detroit, the eye of the economic storm, we will gather our forces at the US Social Forum. A movement is growing to end poverty forever - to create a new life-affirming economy and a better world for everyone. Years after the assassination of Dr. King his words resound loudly and his dream is alive!