Again, Donald Trump is more of a symptom of a larger problem. In that way, he is like the mucus that comes out of your nose when you have pneumonia.
To win, we need to move beyond isolating the problems facing this country. We need to focus on systemic racism, systemic poverty, ecological devastation, denial of health care, the war economy and religious nationalism — all as one issue. In total, these are interlocking injustices.
The battle over voting rights and democracy we are experiencing right now should never have been discussed as a type of new Jim Crow. This is not Jim Crow. It is really “James Crow, Esquire.” The same kinds of laws that were passed in Texas are being passed in West Virginia, where there are hardly any Black people. Racism is operative in the Republican Party’s attacks on voting rights, but it is not just motivated by racism.
These new bills are being backed by the Koch brothers, among others. The goal here is to silence and shut down the progressive voice. The extremists who have hijacked the Republican Party by using “James Crow, Esquire” are looking at the long game. This is not just Jim Crow. Don’t make this just a Black issue. Show the racist side of this issue that, yes, in Texas, they’re trying to block people of color, but those laws are also going to hurt disabled people and women. In West Virginia they’re doing the same thing, but the majority of people who are going to be hurt in that state are white, poor and low-wealth voters. This is an attack on democracy itself.
Why is there so much fear and refusal by too many to use the proper moral language, to speak the truth, about Trumpism, the Republicans and this attack on democracy? This is a moral struggle. There is so much cowardice. How do you maintain your moral clarity?
We do it by building a movement across the country, such as with the Poor People’s Campaign and the national call for moral revival. We stay among the people who are most impacted, and they will keep the fight in you.
It’s hard to not have courage when you’re around people who fight every day, and they keep their courage. We saw this is in West Virginia at our anniversary caravan and gathering to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the Battle for Blair Mountain, where Black and white miners fought together for their rights.
That’s part of the problem for Democrats. They don’t talk to the people. They talk about the people, they talk at the people, but they don’t bring the people in. By comparison, we stay emboldened by staying clear on our moral foundations. Part of the problem is with language, “left versus right” and “moderate” and “conservative” is too puny. It’s not about left versus right, it’s about right versus wrong.
The second reason is that too many politicians are not really reading the Bible, the book they put their hands on when they were sworn into office. The Bible makes it very clear that some things are evil. For example, there are members of Congress and others in government who do not seem to realize how ugly it is to go to John Lewis’ body, laying in state in the Rotunda — whether you are a Republican or a Democrat — and claim that you love him but then go and fight against everything he stood for.
Another example: Democrats and others have said what the Republicans are doing is the worst attack on voting rights since after the Civil War. Well, if it’s the worst attack since the Civil War, how do you compromise on the solution?
If 700 people were dying every day from poverty before COVID, how do you not call that, to borrow from Dr. King, a form of government-sponsored murder? Poverty destroys lives. Poverty is not the result of the immoral actions of poor people. Poverty is the result of bad public policy.
What can the average American, everyday people, do in their daily lives to maintain clarity and struggle for justice?
When I tell folks to join the movement, I do not mean join an organization. You haven’t heard me one time say that the Poor People’s Campaign is an organization. That grows out of our way of organizing, which is modeled on the Reconstruction movement of the 19th century.
You are part of a movement when you agree with the core principles and incorporate the struggle into your life. In essence, the movement becomes your meditation. The movement becomes your courage, hooking up with other people becomes your strength. It becomes your day-to-day activity. It is not just participating in a march.
Learning from American history, the 1963 March on Washington happened because there were 400 or 500 cities where people were already engaged and involved in activities such as civil disobedience. Many folks forget that at the end of the 1963 march, Martin Luther King said, “Go back.” Folks remember “I have a dream,” but King finished with, “Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back, go back, go back. Go back, keep fighting.”
When we summon moral language and describe our struggle as a moral movement, what we are really saying is that this is why I’m alive. This is what’s going to get me up in the morning, not my alarm clock. This is what my life purpose is. You don’t fight systems on your own. You don’t try to figure out what you can do by yourself. “We” is the most important word in the justice vocabulary. It’s not what I can do, it’s what we can do.
America feels like it is about to burst. There is something profoundly wrong in American society right now. So many forces of destruction and evil and other troubles are coming together and there has been no closure.
Well it is. There can’t be any closure until we face it. It can’t be. This is not new to this society. Imagine Black slaves year after year with no closure. One of the things we have to realize is that this is not new in the American reality, but what is also not new in the American reality is people who find, in the midst of those moments, their purpose and their courage.
My question is, can America survive? Can America survive with over 87 million people uninsured or underinsured? Can America survive with these fundamental attacks on democracy? America is already to some degree an oligarchy. Decisions are being made by money in politics rather than the votes of people. We are about to burst, and we are bursting.
Now the question is, where’s the energy going to go? Because it’s going somewhere. And it is always when a nation is about to burst that moral movements are birthed. If you do not have the moral movements, then that energy can go in directions that are utterly destructive. But that bursting can also be a birthing. As has been explained to me, when a woman has a baby, it is the most critical time between life and death, and the most creative time.
Is this moment in America going to be a tomb or a womb? Is it going to be the burying of democracy, or is it going to be the birthing of a new freedom?
