Fifty years ago, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and many other leaders launched a Poor People’s Campaign to tackle the pervasive problems of systemic racism, poverty, and militarism. By many measures, these interrelated problems are worse today than they were back in 1968. And if you add in climate change and ecological devastation, the urgency is now even greater.
In 2018, the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival released its Poor People’s Moral Agenda & Declaration of Fundamental Rights, with demands that address these interlocking themes, and the following year released a Moral Budget that details how our government can follow through. We must continue to build power among the 140 million poor & dispossessed of this nation. Fight poverty, not the poor!
These factsheets, for each of the 50 states plus Washington, DC, were compiled to be used by organizers, activists, educators, students, and citizens who are interested in getting the numbers on how resources are really distributed throughout the United States—and how those conditions shape millions of people’s lives today.
Learn more about the interlocking evils of systemic racism, poverty, militarism/the war economy, ecological devastation, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism in your state!
Data reflects research from February 2020.