Carolina QuotesWith its broad sweep, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us into an unprecedented national emergency. This emergency, however, results from a deeper and much longer term crisis — that of poverty and inequality, and of a society that ignores the needs of 140 million people who are poor or a $400 emergency away from being poor.
William Barber II Connected to the Carolinas
Source
Letter to President Donald Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Members of the 116th Congress, Poverty Amidst Pandemic: A Moral Response to COVID-19 (March 19, 2020), co-written with Liz Theoharis, Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival
- form
- letter
- year
- 2020
Cite this record
“With its broad sweep, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced us in…” William Barber II. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-0692D668E2. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/0692d668e2
More from William Barber II
We cannot return to normal. Addressing the depth of the crises that have been revealed in this pandemic means enacting universal health care, expanding social welfare programs, ensuring access to water and sanitation, cash assistance to poor and low income families, good jobs, living wages and an annual income and protecting our democracy. It means ensuring that our abundant national resources are used for the general welfare, instead of war, walls, and the wealthy.
It should not have taken a pandemic to raise these resources. In June 2019, we presented a Poor People’s Moral Budget to the House Budget Committee, showing that we can meet these needs for this entire country. If you had taken up this Moral Budget, we would have already moved towards infusing more than $1.2 trillion into the economy to invest in health care, good jobs, living wages, housing, water and sanitation services and more.
Republicans have racialized poverty, and Democrats have run from poverty. And we’re forcing them to deal with the reality. We are very political, but we’re not partisan... There is not some separation between Jesus and justice; to be Christian is to be concerned with what’s going on in the world... All the victories we enjoy today—voting rights, Social Security, minimum wage—100 years ago were seen as virtually impossible...Everything we won, people had to start winning in the midst of opposition that looked like it was overwhelming. I believe that’s the moment we’re in right now.