Official RNC/DNC March Press Announcement
Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) / POOR PEOPLE’S ARMY Press Release
For immediate release, August 22nd, 2023
Contact: Cheri Honkala, PPEHRCorg@gmail.com
215-869-4753
On July 15, 2024 in Milwaukee, WI, opening day of the Republican National Convention (RNC), the Poor People’s Army will march on the RNC to challenge the corporate “Liberals” and “Conservatives,” and chart a third path for our future. Then they will continue their march 100 miles to Chicago, IL, arriving on August 19, 2024 for opening day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC). The Poor People’s Army March will stop in cities and towns along the way, sharing a vision of poor and working people building power independent of these two dead-end corporate political parties. The Poor People’s Army will collect and deliver evidence of Crimes against Humanity, and demand an end to preventable atrocities caused by the Republican and Democratic Parties and the corporations that control them. For 3 decades, PPEHRC / Poor People’s Army has been reclaiming the basic necessities of life– with free food distribution & housing takeovers of abandoned properties. Since 2000 they have led marches of tens of thousands of people on the RNC and DNC during election years.
Poor people in this country have had enough. We are the bottom coming for the top, declaring a state of emergency for this country and beyond,” says Cheri Honkala, founder and leading human rights activist. “We recognize that these political parties do not care about the atrocious state of poverty, racially-motivated violence, and political suppression of marginalized groups in this country. We’re taking matters into our own hands, and spreading the message - things need, and will change if it's the last thing we do.”
The World Economic Forum projects that within 5 years almost a quarter of jobs worldwide will be disrupted by technology, automation, and disasters caused by a changing climate. Unfettered capitalism in the U.S. has built exorbitant wealth for a select few, while the poor, disproportionately made up of people of color and women, have endured centuries of exploitation. Over the last two years, the top 1 percent pocketed 2/3rds of new wealth generated. It is clear that the systems of abuse poor people face - pipeline incarceration, police violence, drug crisis, coercive military drafting, and general governmental neglect - are methods of suppression. The Poor People's Army rejects reformist sentiments, demanding an end to the source of all economic, social, and political issues - corporate, imperialist capitalism.
“We will unite people from coast to coast, cities to prairies, family farms to crumbling factory towns. Poor and working people in the U.S. need to wrestle control away from corporations and the rich, to plan and adapt to these changes in a way that benefits all humanity,” states the march’s website, www.poorpeoplesarmymarch.com.
