THE NEXT POVERTY INITIATIVE POVERTY SCHOLARS LEADERSHIP SCHOOL IS LESS THAN A WEEK AWAY (JULY 8-10)! READ MORE AND WATCH A SHORT VIDEO ABOUT THESE SCHOOLS BELOW.
The Poverty Initiative, especially through its Poverty Scholars Program maintains its commitment to working together to Reignite the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Poor People’s Campaign – which means to unite the poor across racial, geographic, religious, and other divisions as a leading social force in order to build a broad social movement to end poverty. Dr. King called this unity of the poor a New and Unsettling Force. The first step in accomplishing the task of uniting the poor is the development and uniting of leaders.
The regional school in Wilkes-Barre, PA, hosted by North Eastern Pennsylvania Organizing Center (NEPA), will bring together leaders in the Poverty Scholars Program currently engaged in or beginning to focus on a statewide organizing strategies. As part of a year long educational plan for the Poverty Scholars Program, the curriculum of this regional school will pay particular attention to two main areas of study: Political Economy and History.
Designed as a space to introduce new leaders from current Poverty Scholars organizations and new organizations seeking to join the Poverty Scholars efforts of movement building, the leadership school curriculum will introduce core concepts of our work including: 1) a New and Unsettling Force, 2) education and leadership development, 3) root causes of poverty and the current economic crisis (Political Economy) 4) what is a social movement, why do we need one, and how do we build one (History) and 5) learn as we lead, teach as we fight: lessons from our struggles today (Wilkes-Barre Reality Tour).
The school will also discuss and help define two indispensible components of a social movement: 1) conditions and 2) consciousness. Historically, social movements emerge out of necessities. These necessities constitute the objective conditions. Dr. King began to describe these conditions when he spoke of the poor who have little or nothing to lose in a system that continues to produce both beggars and billionaires. But conditions alone are not enough. Consciousness of the conditions we face must be developed. This is the task of leaders — to develop consciousness through the study of both historical and current conditions.
The leadership school offers an opportunity for leaders to come together and commit themselves to developing the competence, clarity, and connections that are necessary to unite the poor across racial lines and build a movement to abolish poverty. In order to build this movement, we must strengthen our own development and recognize the importance of developing other leaders. We must learn to teach as we fight, to learn as we lead, and educate as we organize. Without education, organizing is reduced to mobilization. “We cannot afford to just mobilize bodies – we must move minds… Simply mobilizing bodies, moving from one event to another, is not enough to counter the sophisticated and dangerous forces arrayed against us” (Pedagogy of the Poor). To unite and organize a New and Unsettling Force, we must arm ourselves with knowledge and thereby challenge the structures that continue to produce “the cruelly unjust society” in which we live.
