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Poor People’s Campaign activist Carol Harris calls poverty a national shame at Federal Way MLK event
Summary
Carol Harris, a longtime activist and leader associated with the Poor People’s Campaign and SEIU, spoke at the City of Federal Way’s MLK Day celebration about poverty, personal hardship and continued organizing, saying "Poverty is America's shame" and urging people not to be silent.
Carol Harris, an activist with ties to the Poor People’s Campaign and a longtime union leader, urged attendees at the City of Federal Way’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day Community Celebration to treat poverty as an urgent moral and political issue, calling it “America’s shame.”
Harris described personal experiences of economic hardship and cited her work with the Poor People’s Campaign, including attending a national action in Washington, D.C., in 2023. “Poverty is the leading cause of death,” Harris said, adding: “Poverty equals death, America’s shame.”
Why it matters: Harris framed poverty not as an individual failing but as a systemic condition that requires collective advocacy and ongoing organizing. She invoked Dr. King’s Poor People’s Campaign as a continuing movement and called for sustained civic pressure on institutions that she said perpetuate economic injustice.
Harris described how participation in organized action gave her a voice and encouraged others to join. “We will fight. We're not gonna give in and we're not gonna give up,” she said. She also urged community members to stop staying silent about injustice: “No. If you've been silent, we won't be silent anymore.”
Her remarks were part of a program of cultural performances and community recognitions. Harris’s speech emphasized poverty as a public-health and policy concern, not only a moral one, and urged attendees to engage in continuing campaigns and to demand systemic change.
Ending: Harris closed by asking the audience to keep organizing and to remember the Poor People’s Campaign’s links to Dr. King’s broader civil-rights agenda.
