By Kevin Zeese – Posted on 15 December 2011
A group of African American faith leaders announced a major new campaign on December 14th — Occupy the Dream.
Rev. Dr. Jamal-Harrison Bryant will serve as the National Spokesperson of Occupy the Dream and Rev. Dr. Benjaman Chavis will serve as National Director. Russell Simmons, entertainment entrepreneur, joined the press conference via a video as he was in Australia. The group will focus on poverty, jobs and ending the unfair wealth divide.
Occupy the Dream was announced at a press conference at the National Press Club. The group plans a series of mobilizations to bring African American faith institutions to work in coalition with the Occupy Movement. The first will be a national mobilization on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s brthday fcocusing on the Federal Reserve in Washington, DC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Oakland, Los Angeles and Boston. They plan to bring crutches, canes, wheel chairs and casts to Federal Reserve offices across the country and dump them on their door step to show how the bankers have crippled the economy
This is a welcome addition to the Occupy Movement that will bring millions of people to the effort to end economic insecurity and the wealth divide. When I attended the press conference I spoke about how when we began working on this movement in April we hoped that people occupying public space would inspire others to join us in their own ways to challenge the wealth divide. The creativity and comment of different people will result in a more powerful movement that cannot be ignored
In announcing Occupy the Dream the group pointed out that the average income of the top 1% is $1.2 million a year while the broad middle class and disadvantaged struggle to buy food, pay rent ad find a job. In this $14 trillion economy, the largest economy in the world, poverty is growing. This is a human tragedy.”
Rev. Bryant heads the AME Empowerment Temple Church in Baltimore, MD. Rev.Chavis is a civil rights icon who served under Dr. King and served as executive director of the NAACP and was the national director of the Million Man March … (more)
