WASHINGTON (RNS) — Faith-led advocacy group the Poor People’s Campaign is pushing for a broad-based meeting with President Joe Biden to discuss poverty, arguing the White House has not adequately responded to requests for a summit despite the president endorsing the group while running for office and speaking at their events.
Speaking at National City Christian Church in downtown Washington on Monday (June 6), the Rev. William Barber, a Disciples of Christ minister and the group’s co-chair, called on Biden to meet with the Poor People’s Campaign to discuss poverty and the plight of low-wage workers.
“Why don’t poor people get the same audience in the Oval Office that corporations get?” asked Barber, a prominent anti-poverty advocate who preached at Biden’s inaugural prayer service.
The Rev. Liz Theoharis, a Presbyterian minister and fellow campaign co-chair, echoed Barber in her own remarks. She pushed for a meeting with the president before declaring that “when we lift from the bottom, everybody can rise.”
The pair was followed by the Rev. Melanie Mullen, a priest and denominational official who delivered a message on behalf of Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop the Rev. Michael Curry, and Rabbi Jonah Pesner, senior vice president of the Union for Reform Judaism.
“We join the call to President Biden and his administration with a demand: to meet with those whose voices need to be heard,” said Pesner, speaking via Zoom.
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Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Monday’s event marks the third time the Poor People’s Campaign, which advocates for liberal-leaning economic policies, has publicly requested a summit on poverty at the White House. The group released a public letter detailing their hopes for an event with the president that includes faith leaders, impoverished people, labor groups and economists.
“The (Poor People’s Campaign) delegation to the White House would be made up of Black, low-wage medical workers, white farmers, Latino meat plant workers, Indigenous fast food workers from Mississippi to Massachusetts to North Carolina to New York to Kansas to Kentucky to Texas to California to Illinois to Georgia,” read a separate statement from the group.
