Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign
3500 Lorain Avenue # 501A
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
info@economichumanrights.org
www.economichumanrights.org

Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

March 5, 2010

Contact: Jeff Rousset, Communications Director, 845-642-8145, jeffppehrc@gmail.com
-OR-
Cheri Honkala, National Organizer, 267-439-8419, cherihonkalappehrc@gmail.com

March to Fulfill the Dream

Historic march and caravan led by poor people goes from New Orleans to the U.S Social Forum in Detroit

NEW ORLEANS, LA – On April 4th, 2010, Easter Sunday and the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s assassination, poor people and their allies will unite with the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) to advance Dr. King’s dream of ending poverty. The March to Fulfill the Dream will visit dozens of cities between New Orleans and Detroit, the site of the US Social Forum 2010, to highlight the urgent need for affordable housing and healthcare in the United States. Housing, healthcare, and jobs are human rights according to the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, endorsed by the U.S. in 1948. Continuing the legacy of Dr. King’s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, which was cut short by his assassination, the tour is part of a larger strategy to unite poor people’s groups and their allies from across the country to build a diverse nonviolent movement to end poverty.

The PPEHRC caravan will visit many cities, including historic cities from the Civil Rights movement, for which Dr. King became the famous spokesperson. Each stop will include marches, demonstrations, and speak-outs led by poor people from the local cities, dramatizing the plight of today’s swelling numbers of the poor. Among the stops is Marks, Mississippi, where Dr. King launched the original Poor People’s Campaign in 1968 with a march and caravan to the nation’s capital.

“Dr. King’s dream is as relevant today as it was during his lifetime. More people than ever before are living in poverty surrounded by an unprecedented concentration of wealth and abundance. We are organizing to finally realize the dream of racial equality and economic justice in the United States,” said Viola Washington of New Orleans, a Katrina survivor with the New Orleans Welfare Rights Organization, a PPEHRC member group.

People in the U.S. are experiencing the worst recession since the Great Depression, with record numbers struggling for jobs, housing, and healthcare. More than 6 million Americans have been unemployed for 6 months or more, “the largest number since the government began keeping track in 1948,” according to a recent New York Times article. A record three million homes were foreclosed in 2009, with millions more expected to follow this year. Over 45 million Americans have no health care. Billions are spent on wars abroad while citizens at home lack basic social services.

“We don’t expect the changes we need to come from Washington or Wall Street, so we are building a mass movement to fight for the healthcare, housing, and jobs we need,” stated Khalilah Collins of Women in Transition, a PPEHRC member group in Louisville, Kentucky. “We are developing leaders from the ranks of the poor to create solutions ourselves and build a sustainable system.”

The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is a national coalition of over 125 grassroots anti-poverty groups, most of which are led directly by poor and homeless people. It is the nation’s largest anti-poverty organization that is led directly by the poor.

The March to Fulfill the Dream and the U.S. Social Forum (USSF) will connect poor people and anti-poverty groups from across the country with a special focus on education and leadership development. Every March event will promote dialogue among poor and disenfranchised people about the economic crisis and community-based solutions. “Organizing and education together can help us turn this recession into an opportunity for creative transformation,” said Larry Bresler, PPEHRC’s National Director.

The caravan, and the USSF itself, where more than 20,000 people representing progressive groups from across the U.S. and the world will gather, will provide spaces for poor people and their allies to further develop the analysis and strategy to build the movement and challenge the structures that cause poverty.

“All major social movements in history have been led by those most affected by problems. The Civil Rights, American Revolution, and Women’s Suffrage movements were all led by those most oppressed by injustice. The crisis in our economic system gets fixed when poor people are organized to lead the fight,” said Cheri Honkala, National Organizer of PPEHRC.

PPEHRC member groups have helped move homeless families into abandoned buildings, and are coordinating food distribution drives to help feed growing numbers of hungry people in both urban and rural cities. The coalition is running a national Zero Evictions and Foreclosures campaign to address what it sees as a national housing epidemic. As part of its “Programs of Survival” people are trained to resist foreclosures by using nonviolent civil disobedience to stay in their homes when other options have failed.

“There’s no more time to sit back and hope for politicians to help us. They help the banks and abandon the poor,” said Marian Kramer of the National Welfare Rights Union and Michigan Welfare Rights Organization, both PPEHRC member groups. “The present economic catastrophe calls for a wave of nonviolent civil disobedience to sweep over this nation and win the basic human rights we need to survive.”

The Most Endangered
Activist in America
Cheri Honkala
Thursday, March 18
7:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$10-$20 suggested donation
for the Poor People’s Economic
Human Rights Campaign’s
“March to fulfill the Dream”

She has been called the most endangered activist in America. Cheri Honkala has been arrested over 200 times while demonstrating, committing civil disobedience and organizing for the human rights of America’s poor and homeless.

Cheri has lived on the streets as a single mother and knows intimately the daily struggles to obtain the most basic of necessities when your poor and homeless. Cheri will be talking about her life as a frontline activist for the poor as well as the upcoming “March to Fulfill the Dream”, a multi-racial march and caravan led primarily by poor and homeless, which will begin on April 4th in New Orleans and end on July 22 in Detroit. The march will be a continuation of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s last dream of a world without poverty.

Getting fit is far more psychological than it is physical. Some spiritual grounded in concrete flesh.

Today I did 30 minutes on the stationary bike, 30 minutes on the treadmill and 1000 meters on the rowing machine of death.

2.17.10 FOOD LOG

I didn’t write down what I ate today but it wasn’t anything bad. I did have some wine and champagne will visiting with friends.

If you want to understand the global economic system this film is a must see. It specifically deals with the work that women do and how it is measured (or not measured) in the present day economic system. In examining this issue Marilyn Waring also gives us a critical look into the distorted logic that drives the world today.

Fierce Light
Wednesday, February 24
7:00 PM
SAME Cafe
2023 E. Colfax Ave, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

The 2006 murder of friend and fellow media-activist Brad Will in protest-torn Oaxaca, Mexico, is the impetus for Ripper’s journey, which takes him to the flash points  of spiritual activism around the world, including Montgomery, Alabama; Robben Island, South Africa; Andrah, India; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and South Central Los Angeles, where a months-long protest against the razing of a vital community garden provides a highly dramatic spine for the wide-ranging film.

En route, Ripper encounters a number of eloquent icons, including American Civil Rights legend Congressman John Lewis, actor turned activist Daryl Hannah, Nobel prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Alice Walker, Buddhist peace activist monk Thich Nhat Hahn, famed tree sitter Julia Butterfly Hill, and dharma punk, Noah Levine, South Central Farmers; Visionaries.

Ripper discovers what Paul Hawken (author “Blessed Unrest”) describes as the largest global movement in history - thousands of individuals and organizations connected by a shared commitment to compassionate, positive action.

Alice Walker calls it “a human sunrise” - Ripper calls it “Fierce Light.” With stunning cinematography, a compelling soundtrack, and dramatic stories of resistance and transformation, FIERCE LIGHT: When Spirit Meets Action reveals what is possible when human beings, faced with a world in crisis, rise to their absolute best.

Coca-Cola
Monday, February 15
7:00 PM
Hooked on Colfax
3215 E. Colfax Ave, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

A searing indictment of the Coca-Cola empire and its alleged kidnapping, torture and murder of union leaders trying to improve working conditions in Colombia, Guatemala and Turkey.

The Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign is a national grassroots consortium of anti-poverty groups, which ArgusFest is a member.

This show is to raise money for our upcoming  “March to Fulfill the Dream”.

Led by poor and homeless people and supported by musicians and artists from across America, this historic 2,300 mile march is scheduled to start in New Orleans on April 4th (the day MLK Jr. was assassinated) and arrive in Detroit on June 22nd, the first day of the 2010 U.S. Social Forum.

Poverty is everywhere and growing.  We will be marching to mobilize the poor.

Few people know that when Dr. King was assassinated in 1968 he and the SCLC were organizing a poor people’s march from Mississippi to DC. The march went forward a month later without King.

In the last years of his life King was beginning to grow a multi-racial movement to end war and poverty. Sadly, so many years after his death we still see war and more and more poverty.  Adding great insult, King’s legacy is being shamelessly manipulated and exploited by the very creators and sustainers of war and poverty.

BUT WE ARE TAKING IT BACK!

We are re-energizing his movement, which never died. Martin Luther’s King’s last dream of a world without war and poverty is not one you will hear about on TV or read about in the papers but you will hear it loud when you talk with people (most people anyway). We are going to listen to one another, share our visions, and build and reconnect our communities.

We are going to MARCH TO FULFILL THE DREAM!!!

Join ArgusFest and friend for a night of music and dancing to support this effort.

Music performance by Radical Knitting Circle, TheTanukis, Laura Goldhamer, Tyler Ludwick, Pat Dethlefs, and friends from the Bluegrass Quartet.

The Small Arms Trade
Thursday, January 21
7:00 PM
Mercury Cafe
2199 California St, Denver
$5 suggested donation
or 1 hour volunteer

Small arms are the real weapons of mass destruction, killing more than half a million people a year, spreading like a disease and destablizing entire regions. Beginning in the gun markets of Somalia, we witness their horrific impact. But no guns are made in Somalia.

From France to South Africa, Bosnia, Moldova, the United States and Canada, Devil’s Bargain examines the ways in which guns slip from legal to illicit markets. From dealers, to pilots, to end-users, to the victims, we discover a largely unregulated trade in what has become the globalization of death.

When 200,000 AK-47s go missing from Bosnia, activists call for an International Treaty to curb the trade. But it’s blocked by the super power, and loopholes “big enough for an Antonov to fly through” continue to allow the flow of guns that destabilize our world.

American Radical:
The Trials of Norman Finkelstein
Monday, January 11
7:00 PM
Hooked on Colfax
3215 E. Colfax Ave, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein is the probing documentary portrait of American academic and activist Norman Finkelstein. A devoted son of holocaust survivors, ardent critic of Israeli and US Mid-East policies and author of six provocative books, Finkelstein has been at the center of many intractable controversies.

Called a lunatic and a self-hating Jew by some and an inspirational, street-fighting revolutionary by others, Finkelstein is a deeply polarizing figure whose struggles arise from core questions about freedom, identity and nationhood. Following him as he presents his message to audiences around the globe, the film provides an intimate portrait of the man behind the controversy, giving voice to Finkelstein’s critics as well as his supporters.

The Human Behavior Experiments
Monday, January 4
7:00 PM
Hooked on Colfax
3215 E. Colfax Ave, Denver
$5 suggested donation or 1 hour volunteer

Why would four young men watch their friend die, when they could have intervened to save him? Why would a woman obey phone commands from a stranger to strip-search an innocent employee? What makes ordinary people perpetrate extraordinary abuses, like the events at Abu Ghraib?

Documentarian Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) revisits these three famous behavioral studies to explore some perennial questions about why human beings commit unethical acts under particular social conditions. After seeing this film, you may never say “bad apples” again.