Southwest IL faith group launches chapter of Poor People’s Campaign in East St. Louis
The Poor People’s Campaign of Illinois launched a Metro-East Regional Chapter in East St. Louis on Saturday, in collaboration with the Metro-East Organizing Coalition and Healing Our Families Listening Campaign.
The Poor People’s Campaign was launched in 2018 and takes its name from the Poor People’s March on Washington in 1968, organized by civil rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and carried out shortly after King’s assassination in April 1968.
The metro-east regional chapter is the ninth regional chapter in Illinois.
Pastor Larita Rice-Barnes, director of the Metro East Organizing Coalition, said the partnership between the Poor People’s Campaign and MEOC would help amplify the work MEOC has been doing.
“Poor People’s Campaign is a national campaign,” she said. “As many of you know, our issues here in the East St. Louis area don’t always get reported. It doesn’t always get out. So, Poor People’s Campaign helps us to amplify that message.”
MEOC leaders spoke about some of the main issues Poor People’s Campaign seeks to address: climate change and environmental justice; housing, including rental assistance and homelessness; rights for workers, including a federal minimum wage of $15 per hour and the right to unionize; tackling debt, including medical debt and student debts; voting rights; and improving access to health care.
“I can’t imagine you could have a Poor People’s Campaign conversation in a more appropriate place [than East St. Louis],” said Rev. Juard Barnes, adding that East St. Louis is one of the poorest and Blackest communities in America. “… The world poor people are living in, that Black people are living in, is not a sitcom where it all turns out in the end.”
Black August in the Metro-East
The launch of the Metro-East Chapter is also part of Black August events in East St. Louis.
Every Thursday in August, except Aug. 19, MEOC members are canvassing to talk with community members about what issues are affecting them for the Healing our Families Listening Campaign. Barnes said they hope to talk to between 500 and 1,000 people this month.
Canvassing starts on Aug. 12 and Aug. 26 at 3 p.m. at 2511 State St. in East St. Louis.
Those interested in the metro-east chapter of Poor People’s Campaign can contact Rice-Barnes at 1-800-516-5703 or larita@meoc618.com.
What is Black August?
Black August originated in the 1970s in California prisons as incarcerated Black men — frustrated by the systemic racism that they believed drove their incarceration — took matters into their own hands.
George Jackson was sentenced for one year to life in prison in 1960 for allegedly stealing $70 from a Los Angeles gas station, according to the New York Times. About ten years later, he and two other incarcerated Black men were charged with the murder of a white prison guard. That same year, Jackson’s younger brother, Jonathan Jackson, was killed in a shootout with police after taking a Marin County judge hostage to try to secure his brother’s release, according to CNN.
On Aug. 21, 1971, George Jackson used a gun to take a prison guard hostage before forcing him to open several cells. Several inmates attempted to escape in the chaos; three guards and three inmates, including Jackson, were killed.
Incarcerated people came together to commemorate the death of the Jackson brothers and other prisoners in what would become known as Black August. It’s different from Black History Month, in February, because it focuses on the incarceration of Black Americans. Black History Month has also been criticized for leaving out more radical revolutionaries.
While explaining the importance of Black August at the Poor People’s Campaign launch, Barnes said that Black History Month had been sanitized.
“August is a month that’s been commemorative for us,” he said.
Many other instances of Black resistance against systemic oppression and violence have occurred in August, including Nat Turner’s Rebellion, the March on Washington and the Watts Rebellion in Los Angeles; Emmett Till was also killed in August, and civil rights leaders Marcus Garvey and Fred Hampton were born in August.
This story was originally published August 8, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Southwest IL faith group launches chapter of Poor People’s Campaign in East St. Louis."