Poor People’s Campaign puts its Moral Mondays focus on US Postal Service slowdowns
Rev. William J. Barber II and the Poor People’s Campaign held a Moral Monday protest Monday afternoon aimed at pressuring U.S. Sen. Maj. Leader Mitch McConnell to force Congressional action on a pandemic-relief package.
In keeping with the times, this Moral Monday was held online, described as a digital sit-in and call-in during which advocates were asked to phone McConnell’s offices in Washington and Kentucky. The event was set to begin at 3:30 p.m.
It’s the third digital Moral Monday, Barber said, with all three aimed at getting McConnell to intervene to break the impasse between Republicans and Democrats in Congress and approve a second relief package that will benefit individuals and families, not corporations. Similar events the past two weeks generated thousands of phone calls each, Barber said.
He said Monday’s effort also would include demands that McConnell and Congress halt the actions of the new postmaster general Louis Dejoy, who has ordered the removal of mail boxes and sorting equipment from some U.S. Postal Service facilities as many Americans are deciding whether to vote by mail or in person in the November election.
“Poor, low-income people and their allies won’t rest until McConnell returns the Senate to Washington, D.C., to pass a relief bill, defend democracy and protect the post office,” Barber said in a phone interview with The News & Observer.
“McConnell and his enablers must stop playing politics with the lives of poor people and low-wage workers, many of whom must vote by mail,” Barber said. “It’s clear that the Kentucky senator is willing to let Postmaster General Louis Dejoy destroy the USPS as part of his effort to continue an extremist agenda. In tandem with the White House, McConnell is blocking a full and just relief package and de-fanging the USPS to prevent a fair election.
“The orchestrated slow-down on mail is already causing increased late fees on bills that people can’t afford and is expediting evictions because payment doesn’t come in time,” Barber said. “It is also a dangerous form of voter suppression.”
McConnell’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Both houses of Congress left for an August recess before passing a second bill to provide economic relief from the effects of COVID-19. Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called for House lawmakers to return to Washington to take up the problems with the postal service. They’re expected back in town this week.
“Moral Mondays” started in North Carolina in 2013 as a way to peacefully protest policy changes made by the Republican-led state legislature. Barber, of Goldsboro, along with other pastors and social justice workers from across the state, would gather in downtown Raleigh and go to the legislative building on Jones Street, carrying signs and chanting about policies they said hurt the poor: cuts in education spending, restriction of voting rights and immigrant rights, failure to expand Medicaid and provide health care, insufficient investment in affordable housing and other issues.
The protests drew crowds of several hundred when they started in April, and had throngs of thousands by the fall. Eventually, 1,000 people were arrested, mostly for trespassing after refusing police orders to leave the legislative building.
Protesters in other states later emulated the efforts.
This story was originally published August 17, 2020 at 4:17 PM with the headline "Poor People’s Campaign puts its Moral Mondays focus on US Postal Service slowdowns."
