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The Poor People's Campaign is set to march in Memphis on Monday (May 23) following a series of rallies and events all geared toward economic justice for low-income Americans.
"We ain't giving up now. We are losing too many of our children, too many of our family, too many in our community," Rev. Dr. Alvin O'Neal Jackson said during a service at First Baptist Church Broad on Sunday (May 22).
According to Action 5 News, Jackson is in Memphis to lend support to the Poor People's Campaign –– a revival of a similar organization Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. led before his assassination in 1968. The group is planning a larger event in the nation's capital later this summer, the news outlet reported.
This week, though, the group is focused on Memphis.
"Dr. King said either the movement lives or dies in Memphis. This is where it is," Jackson said.
The Poor People's Campaign centers its mission on addressing the "systemic poverty, ecological devastation, militarism, and the war economy," that displaces and marginalizes an estimated 140 million Americans.
"Nearly half of the people of this country are poor and low wealth," Jackson said, including three million people in Tennessee, 1.4 in Arkansas, and 1.5 million in Mississippi.
Monday's march will begin at 4:30 p.m. at the Robert R. Church Park and go to the National Civil Rights Museum. The organization's march in Washington D.C. is scheduled for June 18.
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