Local church members put faith to work in Poor People’s Campaign

Members of the Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church and Lynnwood’s Good Shepherd Baptist Church practice their faith on Sundays, like most churches. However, members of both congregations also put their faith into practice on Mondays, driving 90 miles to Olympia to participate in rallies, marches, and civil disobedience in support of a growing movement called the Poor People’s Campaign.

The Poor People’s Campaign was started by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. just months before his assassination. The campaign works to bring awareness to a variety of injustices such as systemic poverty, environmental destruction, racism, militarism, and more that largely affect the poor by no fault of their own.

Rachel Maxwell, a member of the Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church (EUUC) congregation for over 20 years, calls it a “moral fusion movement,” and it’s not limited to Olympia. Across the U.S., people rally at over 30 state capitols every Monday for the campaign. “It’s a concept that our nation has a distorted moral narrative,” Maxwell said.

Though churches don’t have official relationships with the Poor People’s Campaign, the campaign has a large presence on the EUUC’s website and the church has fostered it by word of mouth. Maxwell said an estimated 10 percent of the congregation has shown up in Olympia, and has made up about 10 percent of all attendees at Washington’s State Capitol. For Lynnwood-based Good Shepherd Baptist, Pastor M. Christopher Boyer has been has been a regular representative and participant.

EUUC’s Maxwell discovered the campaign when her church book group read The Third Reconstruction by William Barber, who co-founded the movement’s rebirth. She liked that it was a “moral fusion movement” because it aligned with the very values which attracted her to the church in the first place.

“They welcomed me as a Jew and others who believed in a certain set of principals and those are moral principals,” she said. Jack Robinson, who has attended EUUC for several years, felt the same way. “I was looking for a gathering that was compatible with my world view,” he said.

Robinson serves a unique role at the rallies and actions: He is a street medic. He has a history of emergency medical care, and so he volunteers to be responsible for ensuring the safety of those participating in civil disobedience, specifically in his team. “I was actually described by some of our Indigenous American people as a water-bearer,” he said, because of the importance of hydration for those participating in civil disobedience. Robinson said he identifies himself as a street medic when he attends the rallies, and the police make a decision about whether to let him do his job. Robinson also organizes other volunteers. “It’s usually a group of people that were past military medics, past paramedics, nurses, physicians. It’s not a certified level of care, it’s people who have that skill set.”

According to Robinson, the street medics remain at the scene until everyone in their team has either left or been arrested.  Arrests are common at the campaign’s actions because the actions’ civil disobedience has involved lying in the streets blocking traffic, blocking highway ramps, sitting in at the rotunda of Olympia’s capitol building, and more.

“Risking arrest highlights my willingness to call attention to those who suffer,” said Wim Mauldin, a member of Good Shepherd Baptist Church, who has been arrested three times. The need to respond to them through drastic means proportionate to the need.” Mauldin said the first time he was arrested, he felt a feeling of freedom. “It was a realization that the fear and threat of punishment could not keep me from expressing my convictions and the greater concerns for our country.”

Rachel Maxwell has been arrested four times, and three of those were by the same officer. She said that during her most recent arrest, that police officer told her he had some of the campaign’s songs stuck in his head. She also referenced the experience of another congregation member, Cecilia Kingman, who recalled Olympia police officers sharing their own stories of seeing the effects of poverty — including witnessing a veteran who died by suicide in public. “The impression I had from the story was that they really believe in the principals we’re fighting for,” Maxwell said.

This morality, and the large participation of churches, demonstrates that the Poor People’s Campaign is not political, Maxwell said, and it’s something she appreciates about the movement.  “I grew up as a Young Republican in a Republican town, I’m a progressive person and I believe we should care for each other, and that’s what we did in that town,” she said. “And it upsets me that the political stage has divided us.”

Good Shepherd Baptist Pastor M. Christopher Boyer.

And yet, according to Pastor Boyer of Good Shepherd Baptist, who is also a former Lynnwood City councilmember, a moral movement can have political impact. “When you get a community like a church pushing on their local and state legislators, things can change,” he said. “To get those little communities activated, it encouraged the broader community to get activated.”

Boyer said in his experience, the church “can disseminate the basic concepts of social justice.” He cited the Bible, saying he has always taken very seriously the concept that it calls for God’s people to help those in need, “whether it’s immigrants, or people who are hungry, or people who are houseless, or people who are just poor,” he said. “I think one of the seven sins of America is that even folks who claim to be Christians turn their back on the poor.”

Boyer explained that organizing the campaign in a church can be difficult because of the private nature of the Poor People’s campaign. The leaders have received threats, and so participants are not given any information ahead of time. Thus, people count on showing up on Mondays to receive a training directly prior to the action. Boyer has been attending the actions after initially hearing about the campaign through its website and through people. He himself has introduced others who have gotten involved, including Wim Mauldin.

When asked if, as a pastor, Boyer had ever had a leadership role in the campaign, he laughed. “I’ve spent plenty of time in leadership roles in my life, but part of the ethos of the Poor People’s Campaign is that it is led by poor people,” he said. “It’s my turn to shut up and be led.” Those at the bottom of the socioeconomic latter, people of color, people who don’t have what most would call a home, people who are disenfranchised, these are the people who lead the campaign,  and he doesn’t mind one bit. “You know, Jesus was a poor man in an occupied country,” he said. “I’ve spent, actually, all of my life being led by a poor brown man.”

The most recent action for the Poor People’s Campaign took place this past Monday, June 18, where 26 were arrested. The next will be a much larger event this Saturday, June 23. A mass rally will take place in Washington, D.C. and other cities in addition to capitols across the country — including Seattle — to cap off the campaign’s “40 Days of Action.” You can learn more and make donations at www.poorpeoplescampaign.org.

— By Mardy Harding

  1. Thanks for a well-written article that represents fairly the views of those you interviewed!

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