2 Rallies Planned In Newark: Poor People’s Campaign, Reparations

NEWARK, NJ — A Newark advocacy group recently announced plans to host a “Juneteenth March for Reparations” and co-sponsor a rally ahead of the forthcoming “Moral March on Washington.”

The People’s Organization for Progress (POP) is helping to organize a rally on Saturday, June 4. It will take place at 11 a.m. at the Lincoln Monument, 12 Springfield Avenue in Newark.

The principal sponsors of the rally are the national Poor People’s Campaign and the New Jersey chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign.

According to a news release from the POP:

“The Rev. William Barber and the Rev. Liz Theoharis, co-chairs and cofounders of the national Poor People’s Campaign, will be the special guest speakers. Barber, who resurrected Dr. King’s notion of the Poor People’s Campaign, has resurrected the concept and turned into a mobile force of direct action, at times employing civil disobedience, to protest injustices ranging from police abuse, most recently attacks on voting rights and poverty, among other issues.”

A national action on Saturday, June 18 – the “Moral March on Washington” – will seek to unite people under these three issues. The POP said several of its members plan to be in attendance.

MARCH FOR REPARATIONS

On Friday, June 17, the POP will host a “Juneteenth March for Reparations.”

Participants will rally at the Lincoln Monument at noon, organizers said. It will be the second year the POP has co-hosted the march, along with the New Jersey Institute of Social Justice (NJISJ) and other local organizations. Read More: Push For U.S. Slavery Reparations Continues In Newark

According to the POP:

“Last year, Juneteenth was declared a national holiday. Juneteenth is a celebration to mark the end of slavery in Texas in 1865. That state’s slaveholding class withheld the end of slavery with the Emancipation Proclamation of January 1, 1863 from its Black population. It was not until Union troops effectively occupied Texas at the end of the Civil War that that state’s Black population was emancipated on June 19, 1865. In recent years, Juneteenth has been embraced by African Americans nationally as a day to celebrate the end of slavery and to unite on the call for reparations.”

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