Category: Articles

Tom Dispatch
by Liz Theoharis
December 13, 2020

Martin Luther King, Jr., offered this all-too-relevant comment on his moment in his 1967 speech “Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?”:

“The contemporary tendency in our society is to base our distribution on scarcity, which has vanished, and to compress our abundance into the overfed mouths of the upper classes until they gag with superfluity. If democracy is to have breadth of meaning, it is necessary to adjust this inequity. It is not only moral, but it is also intelligent.”

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Tom Dispatch
by Liz Theoharis
November 17, 2020

In the two weeks since Election 2020, the country has oscillated between joy and anger, hope and dread in an era of polarization sharpened by the forces of racism, nativism, and hate. Still, truth be told, though the divisive tone of this moment may only be sharpening, division in the United States of America is not a new phenomenon.

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CNN
by William J. Barber II and Liz Theoharis
October 21, 2020

On Thursday evening, Americans have one last chance to hear President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden on the same stage for 90 minutes. While neither candidate is likely to change course or depart from their stump speech, Americans deserve to hear both candidates address the pressing issue of poverty. 

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Inequality.org
by Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis Nijmie Zakkiyyah Dzurinko
September 30, 2020

At the start of Tuesday’s unhinged presidential debate — as the pandemic continued to rage outside the walls of Case Western University — the American people were offered an anemic vision for promoting and expanding public health. In the shadow of more than 200,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus, viewers heard pushback on the use of masks, critiques of publicly funded healthcare, and lies about nonexistent plans to mend a broken and inhumane healthcare system.

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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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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