Giving Compass' Take:

• K. A. Dilday reports that the Poor People’s Campaign is working to reveal the impacts of voting rights on poor people of all races who suffer from the alienation of their rights. 

• How can funders work to reduce impediments to voting and increase voting access for poor individuals? What states have the best and worst voting rights? 

• Learn about the importance of ensuring voting rights to individuals with criminal records


Fifty years after King’s death in 1968, the Poor People’s Campaign is returning to face the same problems, and with the same principle: that people of all races who are suffering the effects of rampant greed at the hands of oligarchs share common oppression, and thus must make common cause. Theoharis, who is the founder of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice in New York City, joined Barber in Harlem to bring the message that to speak and act in “silos” of identity activist groups—black, poor, Native American, white, LGBT—falls prey to the right wing’s divide-and-conquer tactics.

Poverty, they insisted, does not honor the perceived borders of these silos. Today, a greater percentage of Native Americans live in poverty than people of any other ethnicity; there are more white people who are living in poverty than any of other race; more than a quarter of blacks and nearly a quarter of Latinx are poor.

This perspective may seem counter to the current narrative of the left in general, and of black activists in particular, with their focus on black poverty and white supremacy. But Barber asked the audience to examine the state of things more closely: “All of the states that have passed voter suppression laws have elected politicians who cut taxes for the wealthy, who are against workers’ rights, who are against insurance and immigrants, against gay people and public education. They all get elected somewhat because of racialized voter suppression. But when they get in office they pass policies that hurt mostly white people.“

Barber pointed out that on June 25, 2013, the Supreme Court removed a key provision of the voting rights act and “threw it to Congress“ to fix. “They have been sitting on fixing the voting rights act for … five years and four months,” he said. “One of the most racist, underreported acts that we have seen.”

Read the full article about voting rights by K. A. Dilday at CityLab.