Stand against poverty. Fight for families.

The time to act is now.

“You know, it’s hard because you’re living paycheck to paycheck, and you’re trying to put food and things on the table for yourself as well as your children. It gets hard. And many [people] have like two, maybe three, jobs that they’re working. And I see the tiredness [sic] on their face”.

— Protester KATRICE JOHNSON interviewed on Democracy Now

Moral Mondays http://lotusmedia.org

We’re backed against a wall and we have no choice but to fight. We’ve run out of options. The basics of life — healthcare, housing, a living wage — are unattainable for most, and our government is out of touch with this reality. Racism continues to be normalized by our government and our representatives. Our government’s immigration policy is brutal and dehumanizing. Families are being forced apart. Things are ugly and unjust. People are getting angry.

This anger has begun to have a focus. The Poor People’s Campaign launched its 40 Days of Moral Action in May, and has inspired nationwide Direct Action protests condemning systemic racism and demanding that we put an end to inequality and poverty. Over the past six weeks there have been hundreds of arrests as protesters called for a nationwide moral revival.

It is the first organised campaign of civil disobedience in the era of Trump, arguably the most ambitious campaign since the 1960’s. It calls us to consider our role in politics and in our global society.

The movement’s call for a national ‘moral revival’ cannot not be more timely.

Our duty is not to rationalize or accommodate. It is to boldly stand up for what is morally imperative. It is to demand that the atrocities against our neighbors end today. It is to unabashedly confront our friends and family when they try and say otherwise.

Keep Families Together.

The Trump Administration’s immigration policy has long been splitting up families, but this month we’ve been forced to see the worst. We have heard and seen undeniable cruelty. We’ve put faces and stories to these polices, watching footage of crying children and seeing photos of tent city. How much more do we have to see before our outrage outweighs our reticence?

The moral movement has started, and yet we are not outraged enough. Being confronted with this reality has left us no choice but to act. We must continue to put pressure on our representatives to stop this policy now. I’m not just talking about representatives in Washington. We must take our protest to the street. On state and municipal levels, we need to communicate to our representatives that they have power to stop these brutal processes from occurring.

We can all do something to help. In the past few weeks, governors in Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Connecticut and Colorado, have all spoken out against Trump’s policy of separating families and the border, and have taken steps to sending resources to the border and withdraw troops. While we might hope they were prompted to act by their consciences alone, we can be sure that they were motivated by the protests of their constituents.

Call your representative today to support the Keep Families Together Act. The bill has support from 100% of Democrats.

But this is not a partisan issue. This is a moral issue.

Participate in the Families Belong Together Vigil on June 30th.

Talk to your community, your friends, and your religious leaders about our moral duty to help these families stay together, and to give them a home in the United States.

Join the Moral Revival. Stand Against Poverty June 23.

The Poor People’s Campaign fights to end poverty, inequality and racism. It stands up for equal rights in the United States and around the world. It demands a moral revival be spread through the nation. We are all in this together.

Written by Katherine Sylwester