BAMIDBAR, ANOTHER CENSUS
מִבֶּ֨ן עֶשְׂרִ֤ים שָׁנָה֙ וָמַ֔עְלָה כׇּל־יֹצֵ֥א צָבָ֖א בְּיִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל תִּפְקְד֥וּ אֹתָ֛ם לְצִבְאֹתָ֖ם אַתָּ֥ה וְאַהֲרֹֽן׃
(1) On the first day of the second month, in the second year following the exodus from the land of Egypt, יהוה spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting, saying: (2) Take a census of the whole Israelite company [of fighters] by the clans of its ancestral houses,listing the names, every male, head by head. (3) You and Aaron shall record them by their groups, from the age of twenty years up, all those in Israel who are able to bear arms.
וַיִּֽהְי֛וּ כׇּל־פְּקוּדֵ֥י בְנֵֽי־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל לְבֵ֣ית אֲבֹתָ֑ם מִבֶּ֨ן עֶשְׂרִ֤ים שָׁנָה֙ וָמַ֔עְלָה כׇּל־יֹצֵ֥א צָבָ֖א בְּיִשְׂרָאֵֽל׃ וַיִּֽהְיוּ֙ כׇּל־הַפְּקֻדִ֔ים שֵׁשׁ־מֵא֥וֹת אֶ֖לֶף וּשְׁלֹ֣שֶׁת אֲלָפִ֑ים וַחֲמֵ֥שׁ מֵא֖וֹת וַחֲמִשִּֽׁים׃
All the Israelite males, aged twenty years and over, enrolled by ancestral houses, all those in Israel who were able to bear arms— all who were enrolled came to 603,550.
וְהַלְוִיִּ֖ם לְמַטֵּ֣ה אֲבֹתָ֑ם לֹ֥א הׇתְפָּקְד֖וּ בְּתוֹכָֽם׃ {פ}
The Levites, however, were not recorded among them by their ancestral tribe.
וַיְדַבֵּ֤ר יְהֹוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה בְּמִדְבַּ֥ר סִינַ֖י לֵאמֹֽר׃ פְּקֹד֙ אֶת־בְּנֵ֣י לֵוִ֔י לְבֵ֥ית אֲבֹתָ֖ם לְמִשְׁפְּחֹתָ֑ם כׇּל־זָכָ֛ר מִבֶּן־חֹ֥דֶשׁ וָמַ֖עְלָה תִּפְקְדֵֽם׃
יהוה spoke to Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, saying: Record the descendants of Levi by ancestral house and by clan; record every male among them from the age of one month up.
WHY COUNT? WHY NOT?
Rashi - Bamidbar 1:1
The Lord spoke... in the Sinai Desert... on the first of the month :Because they were dear to Him, He counted them often. When they left Egypt, He counted them (Exod. 12:37); when [many] fell because [of the sin] of the golden calf, He counted them to know the number of the survivors (Exod. 32:28); when He came to cause His Divine Presence to rest among them, He counted them. On the first of Nissan, the Mishkan was erected, and on the first of Iyar, He counted them.
The Lord spoke... in the Sinai Desert... on the first of the month :Because they were dear to Him, He counted them often. When they left Egypt, He counted them (Exod. 12:37); when [many] fell because [of the sin] of the golden calf, He counted them to know the number of the survivors (Exod. 32:28); when He came to cause His Divine Presence to rest among them, He counted them. On the first of Nissan, the Mishkan was erected, and on the first of Iyar, He counted them.
וענין המספר שגורם להשרות השכינה אף שלכאורה הוא להיפך, כי בדבר המדוד והמנוי אין הברכה שורה כמו שאמרו רבותינו ז"ל (ב"ק מב, א). דע כי יש שני ענייני מספר. המספר של ענייני עולם הזה שהוא חומרי, זה המספר אינו טוב, כי מאחר שנספר כל פרטי לבדו אז פירוד ואינו חיבור, וגם מורה שיש לו קץ ותכלית. אף אם תאמר שהמספר כחול הים, מכל מקום יש לו סוף ותכלית והיה כלא היה: אמנם המספר של ענין השגת עולם הבא זה המספר בלתי מספר ואין לו קץ וסוף ותכלית והוא דבר שבמנין תמיד. כיצד, ההשגה והדביקות בו יתברך הולכת תמיד מעילוי לעילוי בלתי הפוגות. וזהו שרמזו רבותינו ז"ל בדבריהם (ברכות סד, א) תלמידי חכמים אין להם מנוחה לעולם הבא. כלומר, שאינם נחים על ענין אחד, רק תמיד מתרבה והולך השגתם בו יתברך, והוא יתברך אין תכלית להשגתו, נמצא תמיד המספר סופר והולך ומתרבה: וענין ההשגה אין שוה בכולם ביחד, כמו שאמרו רבותינו ז"ל (ב"ר כא, כ) כל צדיק נכווה מפני חופתו של חבירו, וכל צדיק וצדיק כל אחד ואחד דבר שבמנין בפני עצמו. וביותר שיש מספר הוא יותר חשוב, כי אין קץ ואין סוף למעלות זו על גב זו. על כן עולם הבא לא יהיה לו סוף ותכלית ויהיה דבר שבמנין ולא יהיה בטל, רק מונה והולך:
Concerning the relevance of the number of Israelites required to assure a permanent Presence of the Shechinah, we will appreciate the following: Although we have a rule that anything subject to numbers and measures does not attract ברכה, blessing, this rule applies only when the number or measurement in question is intrinsically physical, part of this material world. Such numbers, by their very definition, do not bode well, since they are intended to stress individuality in the sense of separateness. Each item is counted separately. It also suggests limitation. Even if we say that "the number of the children of Israel will be as the sands of the beaches of the sea," an apparent blessing (Genesis 22,17), the presumption still is that eventually this is a limitation, that the number is finite.
However, when numbers are viewed in the context of the spiritual world, עולם הבא, they do not imply limitation. Once something is numbered it will have an infinite existence, usually on an ascending level, the object that is numbered advancing towards ever greater achievements. When our sages said that Torah scholars do not find rest in this world or in the hereafter (Berachot 64a), this is what they had in mind. These scholars do not "rest on their laurels," as it were, but experience continuous growth. Their understanding of G–d increases continuously, and since G–d Himself possesses infinite achievements, any measurable progress of the Torah scholar is not something that is measured against a final target thus preventing him from progressing still further. Different Torah scholars vary in the degree in which they progress towards gaining this deeper insight into the Essence of G–d. It varies from נשמה to נשמה. The צדיק in the Hereafter will never be submerged in anonymity unlike people who are members of an army in this world. The latter lose part of their individuality by the very fact that they are lumped together in a group when being counted.
Why Being Counted Matters
"Being seen and counted matters, because it gives us a sense of context and identity."
"Nachmanides tells us that the most important purpose of a census is to impress upon each one of us the value and sterling worth of our soul." ... "The census is not for the census taker. It is for those being counted, so that they know that they matter to someone.
From Elana Kaufman's ELI Talk: "Racism in the Jewish Community: The Uncomfortable Truth" https://youtu.be/QCtBqbsZPLo
"Being seen and counted matters, because it gives us a sense of context and identity."
"Nachmanides tells us that the most important purpose of a census is to impress upon each one of us the value and sterling worth of our soul." ... "The census is not for the census taker. It is for those being counted, so that they know that they matter to someone.
From Elana Kaufman's ELI Talk: "Racism in the Jewish Community: The Uncomfortable Truth" https://youtu.be/QCtBqbsZPLo
COUNTING THOSE IN NEED
The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival
"The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America 50 Years After the Poor People's Campaign Challenged Racism, Poverty, the War Economy and Our National Morality" (June 2020)
www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/resource/the-souls-of-poor-folk-audit/
Executive Summary
(1) The Souls of Poor Folk traces the 50 years since 1968, when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and thousands of Americans, alarmed at their government’s blindness to human need, launched the Poor People’s Campaign. As they marched up from the nation’s neglected shadows, Dr. King paused to answer a plea for support from sanitation workers on strike in Memphis. There an assassin snatched his life on April 4th.
(2) Broken-hearted, this “freedom church of the poor” gathered by the thousands in Washington. They erected “Resurrection City,” their encampment on the National Mall, to demand that their government address bitter poverty in the wealthiest nation in the world. They confronted fundamental questions about America’s moral and Constitutional vision for all of its people, regardless of their wealth, race, gender or national origin. They demanded attention to the hungry children and inadequate schools from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to the devastated inner cities across America. They made moral witness against America’s long, pointless, and immoral war in Vietnam, and tried hard to be heard as they carried their testimony forward into public life. The hard history that compelled them to “pray with their feet,” as Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, also compelled many Americans to ask whether the republic for which they stood would ever stand for them.
(3) 50 years later, beset by deepening poverty, ecological devastation, systemic racism, and an economy harnessed to seemingly endless war, “The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival” likewise beckons our nation to higher ground. We call upon our society to see the predicaments of the most vulnerable among us and to halt the destruction of America’s moral vision. Hundreds of thousands across the nation today stand on the shoulders of that “freedom church” of 1968. We turn to America’s history—and to the realities of our own time—not to wallow in a fruitless nostalgia of pain. We seek instead to redeem a democratic promise enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, yet even more deeply rooted in the living ingredients of our own lives and embodied in the countless and largely unacknowledged grassroots activists who have labored to lift those founding documents to their full meaning. We come to remind our nation what truths we hold to be self-evident. We come to remind our nation what values we hold dear. In Washington and at state capitols around the country, we hope to make a new moral witness from our love for what Maya Angelou called “these yet to be united states.” The Souls of Poor Folk is an empirical study that brings us toward an honest confrontation with our own history—how our path has unfolded since 1968 and how our nation trembles today for lack of moral vision. It summons our highest moral aspirations and diagnoses our deepest national ailments over five decades. It draws on academic research but also upon the testimonies of human beings battered by harmful public policies. Alongside the carefully assembled facts, you will hear the voices of America’s poor themselves, many of them now joining this movement. “Not everything that is faced can be changed,” James Baldwin reminds us, “But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
(4) The Souls of Poor Folk emphasizes the complex relationships between and across systemic racism, persistent poverty, the war economy and its inevitable militarism, and the ecological devastation from which none can escape. These issues tangle in our lives. If you are, for instance, a mother in Flint, Michigan, the decision of your government to create and then ignore your lead-poisoned water inflicts an environmental crisis, a health crisis, and a jobs crisis, but also a crisis of democracy. None of the families in Flint whose children are exposed to dangerous levels of lead voted to endanger their little ones. Those in power, however, not only made decisions that poisoned the water, but, when informed about this negligence, intentionally chose not to address or even announce the threat of lasting damage this posed to these children; not because this pollution did not matter, but because these people did not matter.
(5) The issues confronted in The Souls of Poor Folk drive the day-to-day struggles of the poor and dispossessed. These issues demand that we dispel the notion that systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the war economy hurt only a small segment of our society. More than 40,600,000 Americans subsist below the poverty line; this report additionally shows that there are close to 140 million people dealing with some combination of these crises every day. Nearly half of our population cannot afford a $400 emergency, which presents a structural crisis of national proportion that ties poverty to things like healthcare and housing. The devastation cuts across race, gender, age, and geography. It has carved a dangerous and deepening moral chasm in America and inflicts a tragic loss of purpose, even among the affluent.
(6) 50 years ago this spring, Dr. King and a multi-colored quilt of God’s children invoked America’s better angels, confident that the keys to our predicaments lay in the hearts of our people. None of our diverse faith traditions celebrate denying food to hungry children or devoting trillions to war and pennies to want. No moral vision embraces the denial of healthcare to our fellow human beings. Many Americans appear to have forgotten their own values and become blind to the needs of other human beings, even those they may still hold in their hearts.
(7) These deep forms of myopia reflect still deeper failures of memory. “The struggle of humanity against entrenched power,” writes novelist Milan Kundera, “is the struggle of memory over forgetting.” Few recall that the war in Vietnam drained away many of the resources for the War on Poverty, which did much but could have done much more. “Bombs dropped in Vietnam explode at home,” Dr. King said. Fewer still recall the prophetic voice of the Poor People’s Campaign and that Dr. King died organizing a nonviolent revolution to push America toward a social ethos grounded in love. "We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society," King preached before his assassination. "We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power." It is time that we turn to our past in order to understand our present, and then turn forward together to build a better future.
(8) As shining and crucial the role of Dr. King and other notable leaders, neither the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 nor our cause of love, mercy and justice today rolled forward on the gifts of a great leader. Our victories in the timeless cause of love and democracy have always required the devotion of thousands of ordinary people, local communities, grassroots groups, prophetic churches, and organizing traditions. In that spirit, the new Poor People’s Campaign will bring together people from all walks of life to the National Mall in Washington and to state capitols across the nation from May 13th to June 23st, 2018, just over forty days to demand that our country see the poor in our streets, confront the damage to our natural environment, and ponder the ailments of a nation that year after year spends more money on endless war than on human need. The time has come to stand together and make a national call for moral revival.
What stands out when you read these numbers, with the spirit in mind?
NY State Fact Sheet
"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 even greater. 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:
Poverty
www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/learn/
"The Souls of Poor Folk: Auditing America 50 Years After the Poor People's Campaign Challenged Racism, Poverty, the War Economy and Our National Morality" (June 2020)
www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/resource/the-souls-of-poor-folk-audit/
Executive Summary
(1) The Souls of Poor Folk traces the 50 years since 1968, when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and thousands of Americans, alarmed at their government’s blindness to human need, launched the Poor People’s Campaign. As they marched up from the nation’s neglected shadows, Dr. King paused to answer a plea for support from sanitation workers on strike in Memphis. There an assassin snatched his life on April 4th.
(2) Broken-hearted, this “freedom church of the poor” gathered by the thousands in Washington. They erected “Resurrection City,” their encampment on the National Mall, to demand that their government address bitter poverty in the wealthiest nation in the world. They confronted fundamental questions about America’s moral and Constitutional vision for all of its people, regardless of their wealth, race, gender or national origin. They demanded attention to the hungry children and inadequate schools from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to the devastated inner cities across America. They made moral witness against America’s long, pointless, and immoral war in Vietnam, and tried hard to be heard as they carried their testimony forward into public life. The hard history that compelled them to “pray with their feet,” as Rabbi Abraham Heschel said, also compelled many Americans to ask whether the republic for which they stood would ever stand for them.
(3) 50 years later, beset by deepening poverty, ecological devastation, systemic racism, and an economy harnessed to seemingly endless war, “The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival” likewise beckons our nation to higher ground. We call upon our society to see the predicaments of the most vulnerable among us and to halt the destruction of America’s moral vision. Hundreds of thousands across the nation today stand on the shoulders of that “freedom church” of 1968. We turn to America’s history—and to the realities of our own time—not to wallow in a fruitless nostalgia of pain. We seek instead to redeem a democratic promise enshrined in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, yet even more deeply rooted in the living ingredients of our own lives and embodied in the countless and largely unacknowledged grassroots activists who have labored to lift those founding documents to their full meaning. We come to remind our nation what truths we hold to be self-evident. We come to remind our nation what values we hold dear. In Washington and at state capitols around the country, we hope to make a new moral witness from our love for what Maya Angelou called “these yet to be united states.” The Souls of Poor Folk is an empirical study that brings us toward an honest confrontation with our own history—how our path has unfolded since 1968 and how our nation trembles today for lack of moral vision. It summons our highest moral aspirations and diagnoses our deepest national ailments over five decades. It draws on academic research but also upon the testimonies of human beings battered by harmful public policies. Alongside the carefully assembled facts, you will hear the voices of America’s poor themselves, many of them now joining this movement. “Not everything that is faced can be changed,” James Baldwin reminds us, “But nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
(4) The Souls of Poor Folk emphasizes the complex relationships between and across systemic racism, persistent poverty, the war economy and its inevitable militarism, and the ecological devastation from which none can escape. These issues tangle in our lives. If you are, for instance, a mother in Flint, Michigan, the decision of your government to create and then ignore your lead-poisoned water inflicts an environmental crisis, a health crisis, and a jobs crisis, but also a crisis of democracy. None of the families in Flint whose children are exposed to dangerous levels of lead voted to endanger their little ones. Those in power, however, not only made decisions that poisoned the water, but, when informed about this negligence, intentionally chose not to address or even announce the threat of lasting damage this posed to these children; not because this pollution did not matter, but because these people did not matter.
(5) The issues confronted in The Souls of Poor Folk drive the day-to-day struggles of the poor and dispossessed. These issues demand that we dispel the notion that systemic racism, poverty, ecological devastation and the war economy hurt only a small segment of our society. More than 40,600,000 Americans subsist below the poverty line; this report additionally shows that there are close to 140 million people dealing with some combination of these crises every day. Nearly half of our population cannot afford a $400 emergency, which presents a structural crisis of national proportion that ties poverty to things like healthcare and housing. The devastation cuts across race, gender, age, and geography. It has carved a dangerous and deepening moral chasm in America and inflicts a tragic loss of purpose, even among the affluent.
(6) 50 years ago this spring, Dr. King and a multi-colored quilt of God’s children invoked America’s better angels, confident that the keys to our predicaments lay in the hearts of our people. None of our diverse faith traditions celebrate denying food to hungry children or devoting trillions to war and pennies to want. No moral vision embraces the denial of healthcare to our fellow human beings. Many Americans appear to have forgotten their own values and become blind to the needs of other human beings, even those they may still hold in their hearts.
(7) These deep forms of myopia reflect still deeper failures of memory. “The struggle of humanity against entrenched power,” writes novelist Milan Kundera, “is the struggle of memory over forgetting.” Few recall that the war in Vietnam drained away many of the resources for the War on Poverty, which did much but could have done much more. “Bombs dropped in Vietnam explode at home,” Dr. King said. Fewer still recall the prophetic voice of the Poor People’s Campaign and that Dr. King died organizing a nonviolent revolution to push America toward a social ethos grounded in love. "We are called upon to raise certain basic questions about the whole society," King preached before his assassination. "We must recognize that we can't solve our problem now until there is a radical redistribution of economic and political power." It is time that we turn to our past in order to understand our present, and then turn forward together to build a better future.
(8) As shining and crucial the role of Dr. King and other notable leaders, neither the Poor People’s Campaign of 1968 nor our cause of love, mercy and justice today rolled forward on the gifts of a great leader. Our victories in the timeless cause of love and democracy have always required the devotion of thousands of ordinary people, local communities, grassroots groups, prophetic churches, and organizing traditions. In that spirit, the new Poor People’s Campaign will bring together people from all walks of life to the National Mall in Washington and to state capitols across the nation from May 13th to June 23st, 2018, just over forty days to demand that our country see the poor in our streets, confront the damage to our natural environment, and ponder the ailments of a nation that year after year spends more money on endless war than on human need. The time has come to stand together and make a national call for moral revival.
What stands out when you read these numbers, with the spirit in mind?
NY State Fact Sheet
"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 even greater. 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:
Poverty
- 45% of people in New York are poor or low-income—a total of 8.6 million residents. This includes 58% of children (2.4 million), 50% of women (5 million), 65% of Black people (1.7 million), 71% of Latinx people (2.5 million), and 36% of White people (3.9 million).
- From 1979 to 2012, income for the top 1% grew by 307%, while income for the bottom 99% only grew 8%.
Systemic Racism - 57% of the eligible voting-age population in New York turned out to vote in 2016, out of 13.7 million eligible voters. That includes 58% of 2.3 million eligible Black voters, 51% of 1.7 million eligible Latinx voters, 35% of 1 million eligible Asian voters, and 60% of 10.1 million eligible White voters.
- More than 97 thousand residents cannot vote due to felony disenfranchisement, including over 46 thousand Black people (2% of the Black population in New York).
- Of the over 49 thousand people imprisoned in New York as of 2017, about 76% are people of color.
- Black residents of New York are incarcerated at 8 times the rate of White residents.
Militarism and the war economy - From 2008 to 2014, NY law enforcement received at least $30 million in federal military equipment.
- New York taxpayers contributed $62.4 billion to the military in 2018.
- Over 213,000 veterans have incomes below $35,000—this is 23% of the NY veteran population as of 2015.
- New York has 76 ICE detention centers as of 2019. Over 103 thousand people were deported from New York between 2003 and 2018, and over 131 thousand immigration removal cases are currently pending. Meanwhile, 725 thousand residents of the state are undocumented, and 7% of K-12 students have undocumented parents.
Ecology and health - 1 million people in New York are uninsured as of 2018.
- 16% of census tracts in New York are at-risk for being unable to afford water.
Family, community, and education - New York currently ranks 18th of all states in quality of child education. 64% of fourth graders are not proficient in reading, and 66% of eighth-graders are not proficient in math as of 2017.
- Nonwhite school districts receive an average of $2,222 less in funding per student than white districts. Poor nonwhite school districts receive $4,094 less per student than poor white districts.
- 3,000,000 people benefit from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program monthly as of 2016.
- As of 2015, 819,000 children live in food-insecure households, 19% of all children in New York.
- 30% of children in New York have parents without secure jobs as of 2016 – that’s 1,200,000 children.
Everybody’s got a right to live - Over 91 thousand people in New York are homeless as of 2018.
- Working at the 2018 state minimum wage, it takes 113 hours of work per week to afford a 2-bedroom apartment.
- 3.2 million make under $15 an hour—38% of NY’s workforce as of 2018, the 40th highest of all states.
- The minimum wage in New York is $11.10 in 2019. A living wage in the state in 2019 would be $28.90 an hour.
www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/learn/
From Dayenu: A Jewish Call to Climate Action
[Since Passover, during the counting of the omer, Dayenu has held actions.] In Manhattan, we gathered outside of BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup headquarters during their annual shareholder meetings. Rabbinical students wrapped tefillin and led shacharit morning prayer, raising our voices alongside youth, Indigenous, and faith allies. At these meetings, we saw investors with billions of dollars in assets vote for climate resolutions: 12.8% of Citigroup shareholders, and 11% of Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo shareholders voted in favor of resolutions calling for an end to fossil fuel expansion. These may look like small numbers, but they represent a sea change of thinking, and a sign that our movement is gaining credibility and support. - Rabbi Jennie Rosen, via email
[Since Passover, during the counting of the omer, Dayenu has held actions.] In Manhattan, we gathered outside of BlackRock, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup headquarters during their annual shareholder meetings. Rabbinical students wrapped tefillin and led shacharit morning prayer, raising our voices alongside youth, Indigenous, and faith allies. At these meetings, we saw investors with billions of dollars in assets vote for climate resolutions: 12.8% of Citigroup shareholders, and 11% of Bank of America, Chase, and Wells Fargo shareholders voted in favor of resolutions calling for an end to fossil fuel expansion. These may look like small numbers, but they represent a sea change of thinking, and a sign that our movement is gaining credibility and support. - Rabbi Jennie Rosen, via email
Call to Action: Poor People's Campaign Join members of fellow Brooklyn faith communities and the Campaign at the Mass Mobilization on June 18th. RSVP for the March: www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/june18/?source=RAC and secure a seat on our bus: rally.co/ppc-bk-brownstone.
CBE's Dismantling Racism Team Track their work with www.communitiesnotcagesny.org, remembering that 75% of the 54,700 NY state citizens incarcerated in the state system are black, and 98% of convictions are a result of coercive plea deals, not a trial.
Consider What will help us in our social justice work, to understand the scope of the problem and not become lost or numb to the magnitude of it?
CBE's Dismantling Racism Team Track their work with www.communitiesnotcagesny.org, remembering that 75% of the 54,700 NY state citizens incarcerated in the state system are black, and 98% of convictions are a result of coercive plea deals, not a trial.
Consider What will help us in our social justice work, to understand the scope of the problem and not become lost or numb to the magnitude of it?