Open House Invitation
Dear Members of the First Congregational Church of Bellingham,
The Washington Poor People’s Campaign is glad to count you as supporters of our campaign and your congregation among our faith partners. As you may know we are engaged in a season of organizing for the Mass Poor People’s and Low Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March On Washington and to the Polls June 18!
We invite you to join our other 40+ mobilizing and faith partners during our April 4 Open House at 7:00 pm for a powerful convening. April 4 marks two important anniversaries for our Campaign. Tragically, it marks the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 but it also marks the delivery of his speech at the Riverside Church a year before: "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break the Silence."
What Dr. King said that day on April 4, 1967 is foundational to our work as the Poor People’s Campaign and as compelling as ever: “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism”.
In a country plagued by these interlocking injustices along with ecological devastation and a distorted national morality we heed Dr. King’s call: we won’t be silent anymore. Beyond lifting up our voices, the crises we face demand that we march with the national Poor People’s Campaign on June 18 both in Washington DC and here in Washington State.
During our open house we will ask our partners and supporters to consider how they can join us on June 18th to build power, to shift distorted immoral narratives, and to demand policies which fully address poverty, racism, militarism, ecological devastation from the bottom up. There are many ways our partners can support our efforts and every action is meaningful!
- Can you support a small delegation of leaders in traveling to DC?
- Can you collaborate with our organizers to build powerful local actions here in Washington on June 18th?
- Can we raise funds together to ensure the voices of our neighbors living in poverty are heard across the country?
- Can we invite folks to tune into the march virtually?
On April 4, our answers to these questions will break the silence. Please register here if you can join us. Please let us know if you are not able to attend but would like us to follow up with you soon.
Forward Together, Not One Step Back!
The Coordinating Committee of the Washington State Poor People’s Campaign,
Tri Chair Rev. Bianca Davis-Lovelace
Darcy Gillespie
Dorothy Van Soest
Ian Schaefer Lorenz
Karen Schneider
Ming Chen
Romy Garcia
Susan Partnow
Tae Phoenix
