Category: Articles

Tom Dispatch
by Liz Theoharis
September 27, 2020

On August 26th, during the Republican National Convention, Vice President Mike Pence closed out his acceptance speech with a biblical sleight of hand. Speaking before a crowd at the Fort McHenry National Monument in Baltimore, he exclaimed, “Let’s fix our eyes on Old Glory and all she represents. Let’s fix our eyes on this land of heroes and let their courage inspire.” In doing so, he essentially rewrote a passage from the New Testament’s Book of Hebrews: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross.”

Continue reading →

The urgent case for setting our sights higher.

In These Times
By Rev. William Barber and Rev. Liz Theoharis
August 19, 2020

It is pow­er­ful sym­bol­ism and his­tor­i­cal sub­stance to have a Black woman, a woman of col­or, on the pres­i­den­tial tick­et of a major U.S. polit­i­cal par­ty, a mul­ti-racial tick­et that could lead this nation still strug­gling to deal with the ves­tiges of what Rev. James Law­son described at Con­gress­man John Lewis’ funer­al, as the dis­ease of ​“plan­ta­tion capitalism.”

Continue reading →

CNN
By William J. Barber II and Liz Theoharis
August 13, 2020

For the last three years, the Poor People’s Campaign has organized among the 140 million Americans who are in poverty or one emergency away from poverty, and who have decided it’s time to build the power to change their country. From California to the Carolinas, Mississippi to Maine, the mountains of Kentucky to the backroads of Alabama, we’ve seen how paid-for politicians have threatened the voting rights of poor folks of every race, creed and sexuality. We’ve also seen what’s possible when the dispossessed of this nation begin to move together.

Continue reading →

Our government’s abandonment of the people is sin of the highest order.

Common Dreams
by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
August 02, 2020

On Monday, August 3, faith leaders with the Poor People’s Campaign will flood Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Senate with calls saying that it is treacherous and heretical to hold up the Constitution and the Bible while trampling on the right of every person to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We demand a true relief bill, one that guarantees healthcare and an adequate income, protects housing, water and utilities, and prioritizes the needs of all people, especially the poor, not the wealthy and corporations. 

Continue reading →

Tom Dispatch
by Liz Theoharis
July 21, 2020

The word jubilee comes from the Hebrew “yovel,” meaning a “trumpet blast of liberty.” It was said that, on the day of liberation, the sound of a ram’s horn would ring through the land. These days, I hear the sound of that horn while walking with my kids through the streets of New York City, while protests continue here, even amid a pandemic, as they have since soon after May 25th when a police officer put his knee to George Floyd’s neck and robbed him of his life. I hear it when I speak with homeless leaders defending their encampments amid the nightmare of Covid-19. I hear it when I meet people who are tired, angry, and yet, miraculously enough, finding their political voices for the first time. I hear it when I read escaped slave and abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass’s speech on the eve of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Continue reading →

Business Insider
By Shailly Gupta Barnes and Liz Theoharis
Jul 18, 2020

A recent article in The New York Times offered a surprising assessment of poverty during the pandemic. It outlined how massive federal aid over the last three months may have capped a rise in poverty or actually lowered it.

For those who have stood for hours in food lines or for anyone who has made upwards of 200 calls before reaching an unemployment office, this news might not only seem inaccurate, but insulting. 

Continue reading →

Morning Consult
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis & Rachel O’Leary Carmona
July 14, 2020

On the surface, 2020 feels like it can be defined by adversity. The year began with an unprecedented pandemic, and a corresponding public health and economic crisis. The COVID-19 quarantine was followed by mass protests in response to the police killing unarmed people of color.

Yet, from that adversity a movement was strengthened that is growing in power every day.

Continue reading →

CNN
By William J. Barber II and Liz Theoharis
June 21, 2020

(CNN) In public demonstrations that have spread around the world, a multicolored coalition for racial justice has taken to the streets since the killing of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis on Memorial Day. Their slogan, “Black Lives Matter,” is reverberating across America, and politicians have scrambled to draft legislation to satisfy their demands.

Continue reading →

The New York Times
By William Barber II, Liz Theoharis, Timothy B. Tyson and Cornel West
June 19, 2020

Since the casual killing of George Floyd on camera, unprecedented protests — not policy papers — have radically shifted public opinion in support of the battle against systemic racism. The new nation being born in our streets may yet blossom into Langston Hughes’s “land that never has been yet / and yet must be” — but only if this movement refuses to let its truths be marched into the narrow cul-de-sac of “police reform.”

Continue reading →

The following sermon was given by Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Director of the Kairos Center and Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, during the Mass Poor People’s Assembly & Moral March on Washington on June 20, 2020. Join the movement here.

Continue reading →