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.
Category: Articles
Dismantle the War Economy
openDemocracy
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis and Stephen Miles
June 19, 2020
2020 began with a near-war with Iran – the deadly upshot of a bomb-first-ask-questions-later approach to world affairs.
Then came a pandemic – a public health disaster made all the more lethal by our leadership’s utter indifference to the lives of the people, especially the poor and people of color.
You Only Get What You’re Organized to Take
Tom Dispatch
By Liz Theoharis
June 4, 2020
In the summer of 1995, when I was 18, I started visiting Tent City, a temporary encampment in an abandoned lot in northeast Philadelphia. About 40 families had taken up residence in tents, shacks, and other makeshift structures. Among them were people of various races, ages, and sexual orientations, all homeless and fighting for the right to live.
‘Normalcy—Never Again!’
The Nation
By Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
May 8, 2020
Sitting in the same Lincoln Memorial that offered the backdrop for Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous speech, President Trump staged a Fox News event last Sunday evening to claim that the time has come to reopen America. Bizarre as the scene seemed to anyone familiar with the legacy of Dr. King, it wasn’t an original concept. For weeks, protesters defying stay-at-home orders have appealed to the civil disobedience of Rosa Parks as justification for their actions. They claim a right to be “free” from any obligation to care for their neighbors by staying home to slow the spread of a deadly virus.
Poor People’s Campaign: We Refuse to Allow Politicians and Big Corporations to Balance State Budgets by Denying Rights
Inequality.org and Common Dreams
by Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
May 7, 2020
From the beginning of this pandemic, the response of our elected officials has prioritized private profits over saving lives. Kentucky Senator and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell came out in opposition to federal support for state budgets, specifically mentioning state pensions as unworthy of being bailed out. In doing so, he signaled his support for using this crisis, and budget crises in states across the country, as an opportunity to abdicate responsibility for paying millions of workers benefits they’ve worked for their whole lives.
Repairing This “Era of Abandonment”
Reflections: A Magazine of Theological and Ethical Inquiry from Yale Divinity School
By Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis
Spring 2020
Fifty-five years after civil rights activists marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge and awoke the nation to their struggle, the city of Selma is quietly dying along the banks of the Alabama River. Good paying jobs have all but disappeared, whole blocks of houses and roads are in disrepair, healthcare is a luxury because Medicaid expansion has been blocked by the state, and generations of local boys and girls have disappeared into a knotty web of jails and prisons.
The pandemic offers a chance to transform the US’ cruel policies toward poor people
CNN
By Philip Alston, Rev. William Barber and Rev. Liz Theoharis
April 30, 2020
(CNN) Out of the wreckage of World War II, the United States worked with other countries to proclaim, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that “freedom from fear and want” are people’s highest aspirations. Seventy-two years later, with a pandemic laying waste to lives and livelihoods, the world is again gripped by fear and want.
Inequality and the Coronavirus, Or How to Destroy American Society From the Top Down
Tom Dispatch
By Liz Theoharis
April 21, 2020
My mom contracted polio when she was 14. She survived and learned to walk again, but my life was deeply affected by that virus. Today, as our larger society attempts to self-distance and self-isolate, my family has texted about the polio quarantine my mom was put under: how my grandma fearfully checked my aunt’s temperature every night because she shared a bedroom with my mom; how they had to put a sign on the front door of the house that read “quarantine” so that no one would visit.
America’s Wannabe Caesar
Sojourners
By William J. Barber II and Liz Theoharis
April 20, 2020
The Treasury Department announced last week that Trump’s name will appear on the relief checks that Americans will soon receive. As Christian pastors and scholars, we remember Caesar adorned Roman coinage with his image in Jesus’ day. Caesar claimed the titles “savior of the world,” “benevolent benefactor,” “God,” and “ultimate authority” while ruling over one of the most unequal societies in history. He militarized and divided the known world, and imposed taxes on the poor while giving tax breaks to the rich. Caesar built towers with his name on them and gave the people bread and circuses.
Worried About Inequality After the Pandemic? Start by Listening to the Women Ringing the Alarm for Decades
Religion Dispatches
By Liz Theoharis
April 10, 2020
In 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. began to organize the Poor People’s Campaign, pulling together poor people and moral leaders from across the country to unite across lines of division. Just two months before his assassination he traveled to Chicago to enlist the women of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO), which included in its ranks 10,000 dues-paying, welfare-receiving members in over 100 chapters.