North Carolinians to March for Healthcare and Racial Justice Saturday
Fayetteville, NC – Coalitions of poor and impacted groups across 13 states prepared for a week of “Healthcare for All Marches” that began Sept. 28th to denounce the government’s failed response to COVID-19 and highlight poor people’s leadership in the fight for universal healthcare.
In North Carolina, the state Poor People’s Campaign, NC Raise Up/Fight For $15 and a Union, Fayetteville PACT, and other groups will gather at the Fayetteville Market House on Saturday, October 3rd at 12 pm.
WHO: North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign, NC Raise Up/Fight for $15, Action NC, Fayetteville PACT, other coalition partners, and poor and impacted people
WHAT: Healthcare for All March
WHEN: October 3, 12-2:00 PM
WHERE: Fayetteville Market House
“If health is wealth, then we, as a state, are poverty-stricken,” said Elder Hannah Broome, one of the tri-chairs of the North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign, who will be lifting up the campaign’s Jubilee platform at the march.
The march is in solidarity with the newly formed Nonviolent Medicaid Army, a growing national force of the poor and dispossessed modeled after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “nonviolent army of the poor” of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign.
“It sickens me that we have to march and protest for basic human rights when our brothers and sisters are dying unnecessarily,” said Carrol Olinger of Action NC.
As they gather at the Fayetteville Market House — a place that has become the site of several Black Lives Matter actions over the past several months, marchers are condemning state violence and the deaths of almost 200,000 people from COVID-19, which are both disproportionately impacting poor people, unhoused people, low-wage and essential workers, and Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people.
“I caught COVID-19 from a coworker in July. My job classified me as an independent contractor and they didn’t provide healthcare, PPE, or paid sick days,” said Eshawney Gaston, a member of NC Raise Up/Fight for $15 and a Union. “Being able to go to a doctor is a human right, but it’s being denied to millions of people in our state, including too many essential workers. We’re going to keep organizing and voting for workers to have a voice in health and safety on the job, and to get healthcare for everyone who needs it.”
Organizers will declare that health justice is a racial justice issue, justice for essential workers is a racial justice issue, and justice for the incarcerated is a racial justice issue!