The Poverty Initiative and the Kairos Center unite with the leaders of Moral Mondays on understanding poverty in the US as a moral issue

On Saturday, February 8, 2014, the Poverty Initiative and Kairos Center brought together over 70 leaders to the Moral March in Raleigh, North Carolina organized by the sisters and brothers of Historic Thousands on Jones Street who have been leading the Moral Mondays struggle.  The delegation included leaders from the Domestic Workers United (NYC), United Workers (Baltimore, MD), Vermont Workers Center, Picture the Homeless (NYC), Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans Against the War (IVAW), Student Labor Action Movement (NYU), Alabama Fisheries Cooperative (Bayou La Batre, AL), National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI), religious leaders from Union Theological Seminary, Union Forum, Middle Collegiate Church, Auburn Theological Seminary, Abyssinian Baptist Church, Auburn Theological Seminary / Groundswell, Judson Memorial Church, Riverside Church, Occupy Faith, the Micah Institute, independent media makers, labor unions including United Federation of Teachers, SEIU, National Writers Union, and many more.

 

In these times when the ranks of the poor grow in the face of abundance, and the concentration of wealth and power into the hands of a few, the Poverty Initiative and the Kairos Center believe it is necessary to build a broad social movement to abolish poverty.  Poverty is intrinsically linked to the range of challenges our families, communities, and nation face.  For instance, the attack on voting rights happening in North Carolina is calculated to disenfranchise the poor across color lines, and is an affront to our country's claim to be a democratic nation.

The Moral Mondays movement has proven itself to be rooted in faith and a belief in human rights and democracy that is genuinely connected to the people of this country in our sacred tradition of struggle for justice  - from the American Revolution to the Abolitionist Movement to the Civil Rights Movement.

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