![Women’s moral march on Washington: Continuing a season of nonviolent moral direct action](/sites/default/files/images/PPC_Nathaniel.jpg)
Poor People's Campaign rally in Washington, D.C. in 2018. Nathaniel Doubleday / AFSC
WASHINGTON, DC (July 19, 2021) The Poor People’s Campaign is continuing its season of nonviolent moral direct action with a Women’s Moral March on Washington on the anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, the first women’s rights convention in U.S. history.
At 11 a.m. ET on July 19, 100 women will start their march outside the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Together we will call out the immoral obstructionism of Congress, call for an end to the filibuster and demand voting rights and living wages for all. Together, we will risk arrest for these rights and through our actions recall the women who have come before us. This history includes the Seneca Falls Convention, held on July 19, 1848,” Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, co-chair, Poor People’s Campaign, and Roz Pelles, strategic adviser, Poor People’s Campaign, said in a joint letter.
The event will have at least 100 women participants to represent the 100 signatures on the Declaration of Sentiments 173 years ago. The Women’s Moral March will demand to change a broken system that disproportionately affects women of color and poor women.
Over 140 million people are poor or one emergency away from economic ruin, including more than 70 million women of all races, gender, and sexual orientations and faith traditions.
“Despite these unmet needs, our elected officials continue to suppress our votes and use procedural tactics like the filibuster to sidestep their constitutional responsibilities to establish justice and provide for the general welfare,” said Rev. Theoharis and Pelles
Alongside Poor People’s Campaign members from across the country, the rally and march will include dozens of social justice organizations, national faith bodies and labor unions.
“AFSC is proud to stand with the Poor People’s Campaign and with women and girls across the globe,” said Joyce Ajlouny, General Secretary of the American Friends Service Committee. “Women — disproportionately women of color — bear the brunt of economic deprivation and conflict. And we have also been at the forefront of movements for social change. We must continue to take courageous action until voting rights, equitable wages, and civil and human rights are attained for all.”
WHAT: Women’s Moral March on Washington
WHEN: 11 a.m. ET Monday, July 19, 2021
WHERE: U.S. Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C.
Background:
The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has picked up this unfinished work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. From Alaska to Arkansas, the Bronx to the border, people are coming together to confront the interlocking evils of systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation, militarism and the war economy, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism. The Poor People’s Campaign understands that as a nation the U.S. is at a critical juncture – that it needs a movement that will shift the moral narrative, impact policies and elections at every level of government, and build lasting power for poor and impacted people.
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The American Friends Service Committee is a Quaker organization that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action. Drawing on continuing spiritual insights and working with people of many backgrounds, we nurture the seeds of change and respect for human life that transform social systems.