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MORNING MESSAGE
Sondra Youdelman
One of every five working Americans – more than 32 million people – have lost their job to COVID-19. A tsunami of evictions will come unless lawmakers take meaningful action now. Unemployment is rising – again. Hunger is rising, too. And cases of COVID are rising faster than ever. That’s why People’s Action members and allies from coast to coast – 35 groups in 23 states – rose up to demand Congress act NOW to pass a People’s Bailout. What would a People’s Bailout mean? It would guarantee health care, cancel rent and evictions, and provide emergency money to those who need it, rather than fund more policing and bail out corporations. If Congress acts now, we can chart a path towards the economy we need on the other side of COVID: with green jobs and a sustainable, equitable future. This crisis can also be an opportunity, but only if we act. It’s time for a full-court press. We need every lawmaker to act now. So from Alabama to Washington State and everywhere in between, People’s Action members are challenging lawmakers from both parties – in their offices, at state capitals, and online – to do the right thing.
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As a young organizer, I was told we shouldn’t engage in electoral politics – that it was dirty, and a distraction. But after a long run of not winning what we most needed, it became crystal clear that operating only in a landscape created by someone else was not getting the job done. So ten or so years ago, folks at National People’s Action made a hard pivot – we began to take the beauty and power of community organizing into the electoral arena. We started to do what we call Movement Politics: electing candidates who truly share our values, and who will co-govern with us. And it is happening. Since 2016, we have helped elect more than 350 candidates. People’s Action has already endorsed 73 candidates for public office in the 2020 late summer primaries and general elections, with more to come. This Monday, August 3, we will announce these endorsements and officially launch our volunteer election program, the Rise Up 2020 Campaign, in a special livestream event with Senator Bernie Sanders. We expect thousands of volunteers to join this launch – then hit the phones with us and do engaged text messaging to tens of thousands that same evening. We’ve come a long way from when we used to beat our heads against a wall trying to move an elected who, at the end of the day, just wasn’t gonna move. Now we know that if they won’t move, we have the power to move them out, and help move in someone who comes from us. For me, and for People’s Action, Movement Politics is where it’s at.
John Lewis, the Georgia Congressman who led the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and was one of the “Big Six” civil rights leaders who organized the 1963 March on Washington, is being remembered as one of our greatest American heroes, in large part because he was willing to risk his life in non-violent protests against white supremacy. Lewis was arrested over 40 times in nonviolent sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and protests. On March 7, 1965, his skull was fractured, and he was almost murdered, by an Alabama state trooper when he led 600 peaceful civil rights protestors on a march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama to demand voting rights. The violent images of this horrendous, unprovoked police brutality against peaceful protestors were broadcast on the national network news that night to over 60 million viewers, and outraged much of the nation. The images, when broadcast worldwide, also publicly shamed the United States on the world stage. Lewis and the other protestors would have been within their moral rights to have returned the next day armed with rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and even firearms to protect themselves from such police brutality. Instead, Rev. Martin Luther King returned to Selma two weeks later to complete the nonviolent march for voting rights that Lewis had started. These images, too, were seen across the country and around the world. Today, the brave sacrifice of Lewis and his fellow nonviolent protestors is largely credited for the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. If we want to win, we can’t let Trump provoke us into violence. We must honor John Lewis, and his hard-won victories for civil rights, by following his example. Trump is on the ropes. Don’t give him the gift of violent confrontations that he’s so blatantly and transparently trying to provoke to rescue his campaign.
I’ve been in Monroe County Jail on a probation violation for over 200 days now. I expected, based on my probation officer’s words, that I’d be “held overnight.” Because of the pandemic, overnight turned into missing eight family birthdays and the same number of holidays. The jail has had to alter policies, cancel or suspend certain things like visits and religious services. Without visits, we no longer have the luxury of seeing our friends and families, or even the opportunity to leave the unit for an hour or two. I’ve grown incredibly sick of the color beige–the color that gave up. The first time my court date got pushed I was okay with it; the second time I got a little irritated. By the third time it was getting almost unbearable. Right now, I’m a “ghost in the system” – no release date, no court date. I haven’t even been sentenced. The general mood is somewhere between depressed frustration and irritated anxiety, largely caused by all the uncertainty and the haphazard operation of the facility. We’re starting to feel like caged dogs. The situation I’m in is only temporary but, boy, is it emotionally taxing, especially considering I could be stuck here for a month or a year or more. My case is non-essential. It’s especially hard because I don’t know when I’m going home.
In May, Citizen Action of New York (CANY) learned of a man being held in indefinite detention because of COVID-19 and asked if he would be willing to share his story. He agreed. We hope his words, shared here for the first time, bring attention to the countless people being held in jails, prisons, and detention centers during this pandemic.
For decades, we’ve been told that policing is a public good: available to all, for the benefit of all. But in practice, that’s never been true. From the beginning, policing in this country was designed to protect the assets of the most privileged. Today, all across the United States, landlords and property managers enlist law enforcement to forcibly evict low-income tenants. Police regularly remove homeless individuals from parks and public spaces. And cops routinely stop, search, and threaten Black and brown people when they drive or walk through white neighborhoods. We’ve seen these disparities in policing increase since the outbreak of COVID-19. And soon, with eviction moratoriums lifting across the country, tens of thousands of struggling tenants will be sent eviction notices. When families have no place else to go and landlords call in law enforcement, who do you think the police will serve and protect?
In 2020, we can take back our country for the values we all share – solidarity, justice, and a fair economy – state by state, seat by seat, and vote by vote. But we can only do this with your help. Give now to support People’s Action at this critical time.
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