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Rick Reinhard
The crowd reacts to Reverend William Barber II at the Poor People's Campaign rally that kicked off the effort's forty days of civil disobedience on May 14 in Washington, D.C. “Baba” Baxter Jones, in wheelchair, is a disability rights activist from Michigan.
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Rick Reinhard
Palestinian-American activist and Women's March co-chair Linda Sarsour speaks at the rally, accompanied by fellow co-chair Carmen Perez. “Sisters and brothers, it's not okay that for our people in our country to die without healthcare on our watch,” Sarsour told the crowd. “It's not okay for us to be separating mothers and their children on the border. It's not okay, sisters and brothers, that everyday a young black man or woman is killed at the hands of law enforcement in these United States of America.”
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Rick Reinhard
Barber and Reverend Liz Theoharis lead the procession from the rally to the civil disobedience on 1st Street SE in Washington, D.C. They had planned to conduct the direct action on Independence Avenue SE but were blocked by Capitol police before they could get there.
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Rick Reinhard
Reverend Theoharis leads the crowd in chants with a bullhorn as they are confronted by a line of Capitol Police.
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Rick Reinhard
Demonstrators attempting to block traffic in a direct action to call attention to systemic racism and poverty, are met by a line of Capitol Police.
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Rick Reinhard
The first line of demonstrators are arrested. They were not handcuffed but “banded” after showing I.D. They were then led to a holding area on the Capitol lawn where they were processed and released. Here, police band Callie Greer, a community organizer from Selma, Alabama who lost her daughter to breast cancer in 2013 because she couldn’t afford health insurance.
The Poor People's Campaign, an effort to revive the movement Martin Luther King Jr. was helping build when he was assassinated in 1968, began forty days of non-violent civil disobedience actions on May 14. Along with coordinated sister actions around the country, campaign co-conveners Reverend William Barber II and Reverend Liz Theoharis led several hundred justice activists outside the U.S. Capitol building in a spirited rally followed by a peaceful direct action to block traffic that resulted in about 146 arrests. The first week's actions focused on poverty and racial and ethnic discrimination, demands for a living wage, and LGBTQ rights.
Barber indicated that this is just the beginning of a long-term strategy for justice for all, and invited participants to bring others with them back to the space each Monday afternoon, culminating in a massive direct action of June 23 in Washington D.C.
Rick Reinhard is an independent freelance photographer who has covered social justice issues including war and peace, race, immigration, income inequality, and workers rights in Washington, D.C. and elsewhere since the late 1970s.