North Carolina Moral March Brings Hope

North Carolina Moral March Brings Hope

A Justice Movement is Growing in the United States

Rev. Jimmie R. Hawkins (L) Reverend Joe Harvard (R)

Presbyterian pastors, lay people, and theologians were numbered among the estimated 30,000 to 80,000 persons who marched to the State Capitol in Raleigh, North Carolina on Saturday, February 8th. The march was organized to call for well-funded public education, anti-poverty policies, affordable health care for all that includes the state expansion of Medicaid, an end to disparities in the criminal justice system on the basis of class and race, the expansion of voting rights, and equality for all persons under the law.

March on the State House

The protest is connected to the Moral Monday protests that began with an initial pray-in in the state Capitol last year. Several members of the clergy were arrested, citing their opposition to the actions of the newly elected members of the North Carolina state legislature who voted to cut teacher pay and sharply changed the course of politics in the state. The NC Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), led by a Reverend Dr. William Barber, led the organizing for protest at the State House and the annual HK on J March (Historic Thousands on Jones Street), known widely this year as the Moral March on Raleigh. 

A call for national justice leaders and others to join the March was issued nationwide.  The Rev. J. Herbert Nelson, PC(USA) Director for Public Witness, joined the marchers after conversations with Barber and local Presbyterian participants.  Nelson had also visited a Moral Monday march held in Asheville, North Carolina in July, 2013. Of his participation in the march, he said,

Rev. Merili Douglas with J. Herbert Nelson

“It is important that Presbyterians who are engaged in justice advocacy feel supported in their efforts to witness on behalf of the poor. Our bible reminds us that we who know Jesus Christ have a responsibility to embrace those whose lives are most impacted by unjust policies and immoral laws. It is important that the Office of Public Witness be in solidarity in local communities where our Pastors, lay people and others are calling for moral and ethical treatment of suffering people."

Unemployed Workers Need Your Help

The Senate is expected to vote today on a bill to extend Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits to the long-term unemployed.  They need 60 votes!

Write to your Members of Congress today.  Now is not the time to leave unemployed workers without help.

What is UI?

Unemployment insurance is a federal-state program that provides a financial safety net to those who have lost their jobs. Unemployment insurance is the first economic line of defense against the reality of unemployment and is intended to keep people clothed, fed, and housed while they seek new employment. 

The Issue:

On January 1, 2014, the special extension of UI for the long-term unemployed expired. This left more than 1.6 million unemployed workers and their families without benefits.  The long-term unemployed are people who have been without a job for more than six months.  They qualified for their state programs, exhausted those benefits, and now the federal extension is all they have left.

Though the unemployment rate is coming down, the measures of long-term unemployment are not improving: [i]

·      38% of the unemployed are long-term unemployed

·      the average duration of unemployment for all unemployed workers is 37.1 weeks, over 11 weeks longer than the maximum state benefit

·      3.9 million workers are long-term unemployed

The unfortunate truth is that the job market is not improving much. Most of the gains in the employment rate over the last year are due to discouraged workers leaving the work force (no longer looking for a job, and therefore, no longer counted as unemployed). People giving up on ever finding a job is NOT the way we want to see the unemployment rate come down.  We should be making sure that those who want to work are able to find good jobs that allow them to support themselves and their families.

Write to your Senators and Representative now!

What does the Church say about work and unemployment?

In 2012, the 220^th General Assembly spoke on the fundamental nature of our economic system and the way it reflects our values.  The Assembly wrote:

“We reject, as incompatible with Christian vocation, any economic system that tolerates the marginalization or exploitation of any of its members through unemployment and underemployment, insufficient wages, or extreme inequality in access to social goods.” 

The statement goes on to urge several policy proposals that would address the wide and varied root causes of economic injustice in the U.S.  On the subject of the safety net, it called for

“a stronger social safety net for poor and low-income families, through measures such as adjustment of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and related income support programs to extend time limits or reactivate expired eligibility in times of high unemployment, and protection of Food Stamps, WIC, SSI, Medicaid, and other programs for the most vulnerable, from across-the-board budget cuts.”[ii]

 

As Reformed Christians, we believe in the value and dignity of work.  We believe God calls us into vocation, which is a “lifelong response to God in all aspects of one’s life.  Work, paid and unpaid, is an integral part of the believer’s response to God’s call.”[iii] But when God’s children have no opportunity to work we have an even greater responsibility to one another. 

Write to your Members of Congress today.  Tell them to support the extension of Unemployment Insurance for the long-term unemployed.

As the Assembly wrote in 1995, “All conditions of paid employment, including compensation and working conditions, should sustain and nurture the dignity of individuals, the well-being of households and families, the social cohesiveness of communities, and the integrity of the global environment.”

Learn more about Unemployment Insurance from the United States Department of Labor. 

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[i] Tackling the Long-term Unemployment Crisis: What the President, Congress, and Business Leaders Should Do; National Unemployment Law Project (NELP); January 2014. http://www.nelp.org/page/-/UI/2014/Issue-Brief-Tackling-Long-Term-Unemployment-Crisis.pdf

[ii] World of Hurt, Word of Life: Renewing God’s Commuion in the Work of Economic Reconstruction; 220^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2012, http://www.pcusa.org/resource/world-hurt-word-life-renewing-gods-communion-work/

[iii] Principles of Vocation and Work; Minutes, 207^th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 1995, pp.426-427.

Celebrating 23 Years of Second Tuesday Briefings

On Wednesday, January 29, 2014, the Office of Public Witness hosted a reception to announce a transition to broadcasting Second Tuesday briefings via webcast and to celebrate 23 years of in-person briefings with local Presbyterians. Surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, Wayne Ruddock, who participated in creating the program, described the origin of Second Tuesday.  Since its inception in 1991, Second Tuesday has been an opportunity for the Office of Public Witness to support local Presbyterians as they engage in their own advocacy efforts.

 

OPW plans to continue in this ministry and make it more widely available to Presbyterians across the nation by using online tools such as webinar and webcast. When the new system comes online, we will make sure that information on how to tune in will be disseminated.  The new structure will also enable more nimble responses to urgent news and action items.

Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons and Director of Compassion, Peace and Justice Ministry Sara Lisherness attended the celebration, as did OPW staff, interns, volunteers, and Presbyterians from the National Capital and Baltimore Presbyteries. We give thanks for the witness and foresight that created this program twenty-three years ago.

J. Herbert Nelson Remembers Franklin McCain, Civil Rights Leader

Tribute Delivered at the Service of Witness to the Resurrection

for Mr. Franklin McCain, Sr.

Friendship Baptist Church in Charlotte, NC

January 17, 2014

by

Reverend Dr. J. Herbert Nelson, II, Director

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Office of Public Witness

Washington, DC

“Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, they rest from their labors and their works do follow them.” -- Revelation 14:13

Franklin McCain has been written and talked about over the past few weeks on nearly every news service in this country and around the world. His commitment to justice, along with that of Joseph McNeil, Ezell Blair, Jr. (later known as Jibreel Khazan), David Richmond, and countless other young people and civil rights advocates was  reminiscent of soldiers engaging in war against earthly powers and principalities. There are no words to capture the degree to which these college students took on the role of modern day emancipators in an effort to build a new construct for living in the United States. We all are beneficiaries of their great courage.

Our scriptures remind us that those who die in the Lord – those who are engrafted into the Lord’s service and sojourners on behalf of the good Lord’s will being perfected are embraced in this moment – “they rest from their labors and their works do follow them.” As a Christian belonging to the Presbyterian Church, Frank McCain embodied the theology of John Calvin, who believed that our responsibility was to challenge powers, principalities, presidents, and potentates to lead in ways that God’s embrace and acceptance of all humanity might be understood. He called those who would follow Jesus to do the same.

I often wondered why he wore that ROTC uniform at the lunch counter on the day of the protest and arrest. A recent article revealed that he did not intend a statement. The simple answer was that he did not have time to take it off before coming to the lunch counter. It is interesting that wearing that uniform provided a statement about him that he did not even realize. His life represented a willingness to serve his country and the very system that denied him full human rights. However, his sitting down and refusing to bow to the laws that would not fully broker him in was a symbol of his righteous indignation – I am in this country and it is my home on this side of heaven, however I will not accept your terms of alienation. He and many others taught us how to love a nation and challenge it at the same time.

He was a family man who loved his wife and children. He was a brother to his fellow human beings. He was a loyal colleague to those with whom he worked. And he was a leader who knew, as Rudyard Kipling suggests, how “to walk with Kings and not lose the common touch.”

But as I take my seat, let me remind you that there are more than 12 million people who are in need of being emancipated into full citizenship in this country. We live in a nation where our children and adults are shooting themselves and one another to death in murder suicides, homicides, mass killings, and street corner crimes at the rate of over 30,000 per year. While states are suppressing the vote many of our neighbors are refusing to vote.  We have communities that are voting in numbers less than 20 percent during this crucial period in history. Moral Monday is a few days away. Have you been involved? Is your voice being heard?

Let this moment – this hour – this remembrance of our brother, who is resting from his labors, be a calling for you to stand up for the sake of justice in the world. Let our tribute to our brother’s memory today be a renewal of a commitment to stand fast in the liberty wherewith Jesus Christ has set us free. 

Frank McCain’s promise by God Almighty is sure, “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, they rest from their labors and their works do follow them.” -- Revelation 14:13

Action Alert: Tell Congress to Strengthen Welfare Response to Trafficking

January is Human Trafficking and Sex Slavery Awareness Month. Participate today in raising Human Trafficking Awareness!

Tell Congress to support and pass H.R. 1732, Strengthening the Child Welfare Response to Trafficking Act to improve the proper identification of and services to child trafficking victims.

About the bill:

This critical piece of federal legislation works to ensure that child victims of human trafficking are properly identified by state child welfare agencies and receive the comprehensive services they need to recover. H.R. 1732 amends the Social Security Act to require state foster care programs, which receive federal funds under the Social Security Act, to report on current and future efforts to address the human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation of children in their care. It also mandates data collection on the issue of human trafficking.

Additionally, the bill requires the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to develop and publish: (1) best practices for training child welfare employees and court employees on identifying all forms of child trafficking; (2) recommendations for how state welfare agencies can prevent human trafficking; and (3) licensing guidelines for residential facilities with regard to child trafficking victims.

Email your Representative today.

What does the PC(USA) say about trafficking?

The 218^th General Assembly (2008) directed the Office of Public Witness in Washington, DC, to

      a)     express concern for the escalation of trafficking within the U.S. and use the public witness channels available to them to raise issues with appropriate national and international representatives; and

      b)    partner with ecumenical and interfaith entities to build coalitions against trafficking and participate in activities such as the National Day of Human Trafficking Awareness (January 11) and the Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN).

In November 2013, the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board approved a request presented by the Office of Public Witness to affiliate with the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATTEST) in an effort to expand the work and partnership of the denomination on issues related to Human Trafficking. ATTEST represents one of the largest coalition of Human Rights organizations working on issues related to the eradication of human (sex) and labor trafficking.

We thank one of our newest partners ATTEST for collaborating with us on this action alert.