The day before the historic Poor People’s and Low Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and To The Polls, hundreds gathered not only to be served, but to serve each other.

They came for food, and they came for fellowship. They also came to mourn.

A spirit of both solidarity and resolve was palpable last Friday as those who were in town for the Poor People’s and Low Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and To The Polls the following day hosted a communal meal for Washington D.C.’s homeless population and others directly impacted by poverty.

Participants from around the US representing their communities — many of them facing their own personal struggles — sat together, laughed together, and listened to each other’s stories without fear of judgment.

The well-attended dinner was held near the National Mall at Freedom Plaza, the starting point for Saturday’s march.

The group then proceeded to the Lincoln Memorial to participate in a memorial service for the over one million individuals who have died from COVID since March 2020, and millions more worldwide. There was an emphasis on the poor, who were affected by the virus in greater numbers than anyone else, as well as those affected by gun violence and other issues of concern.

A large blackboard-style memorial wall with names of the deceased written in white marker faced the iconic reflecting pool situated in front of the National Mall.

It was indeed a time to reflect. The poor were already suffering before the pandemic hit. They had the least to give, and the most to lose under “normal” — a normal that was never normal, to begin with. This struggle was further exacerbated by this global health crisis, which is still ongoing.

It was also a time to grieve, and to be brutally honest about the anguish, misery and loss of the past two years.

“How many of you know someone who ought to be standing here with you, but they died from COVID because of the lies?” the Rev. Dr. William J.  Barber II, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival asked the memorial service attendees. “How many of you know someone that died from COVID or heard about someone who died? How many of you want to look at somebody when they say to you, ‘let’s get back to normal!’ and you really want to say ‘What the hell is wrong with you, to ask me to get back to normal and my family member died from something they couldn’t even see coming? Something that people lied about didn’t tell us it was airborne at first?’”

A member of Barber’s congregation lost 12 family members to the disease, while a member of the Poor People’s Campaign in Mississippi lost 25 family members within a 30-mile radius, he said.

“What do you do with that, when all you know — uncles, your whole patriarchy, your whole matriarchy — is gone, and then you find out that it didn’t have to be, [and] that the pandemic didn’t discriminate, but the government did?” Barber asked, his voice cracking with emotion.

The pandemic has caused two to five times more deaths among the poor, and 330,000 people died from lack of health care, some of them living in states where everyone would have been covered if governors had simply allowed Medicaid years ago, he said.

Barber invited people to the podium to honor those they lost to COVID, war, and police brutality with their tears — tears that they have constantly been told to suppress.

“I declare unto you, that if this movement can’t cry, America never will!” Barber said, as many present began weeping unashamedly.

If the situation were reversed, and rich people were experiencing these things, the response would be far different, he said.

“Are you ready to come to the conclusion, America, that death is no longer an option, because every one of your regressive policies are killing us, and we don’t feel like smiling, no more,” Barber concluded.

Speaker after speaker shared their own traumatic experiences, as well as those of loved ones and the people they advocate for, during the moving service.

“We need to cry. We have been in collective grief and mourning and acting like everything is okay, and we’re not okay,” said Zillah Wesley of the Washington D.C. Poor Peoples Campaign, tears streaming down her face. “Today is a day I know I’m not okay.”

The attendees comforted each other, whether it was through hugs, a reassuring pat on the back, or simply by acknowledging each other silently through a glance.

People are overwhelmed with death — death from COVID 19, senseless gun violence, injustices, systematic poverty and racism, ecological devastation, the denial of health care and more . … so much death that doesn’t have to be, said Rev. Dr. Alvin O’Neal Jackson, executive director of the Poor People’s and Low Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and To The Polls as he delivered the homily.

“We come tonight around this reflecting pool, not just to remember, but to repent — to mourn, to wail, to cry, to repent,” he said. “It’s nice to go around and shake your head and feel badly about things, but don’t you see, not to make a commitment, not to get involved, is to be involved. Edmund Burke said all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”

Following the homily, Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharris, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival, and the director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary, asked those present to switch on the LED candles that were distributed at the beginning of the service as “Amazing Grace” was played in the background by a small group of musicians. As the sun set on the Mall, pastel pinks, oranges, and yellows cast from the early evening sky flickered across the reflecting pool.

The people were also invited to speak aloud the names of those that they lost, including those already listed on the Memorial Wall display, to add more if they were moved, and to place candles at its base before they left.

Their struggle is now our struggle, we must continue, and commit to not going back to what passed as normal before the pandemic, Theoharris said.

“Normal was 140 million people who are poor and low income,” she said. “Normal was 700 people dying every day in the richest nation in human history from poverty. Normal was millions of people living homeless in a nation that has five abandoned houses for every homeless person. Normal is throwing out more food than it takes to feed every person in the world who’s hungry, and yet cutting Child Tax Credits, allowing half of those families to not have food in a crisis and a pandemic. Normal was 87 million people who were uninsured and underinsured who then found joining their ranks tens of millions of people who lost jobs and health care insurance in the worst public health crisis in generations. We weep, we wail, we mourn.”

Some stood silently before the wall, their faces etched with pain. Others wept openly and showed solidarity with those who were similarly distressed. Many displayed rituals of their faith, such as making the sign of the cross or bowing before the memorial. A number of people held their candles close to their bosom.

People slowly dispersed, the air heavy with sorrow and the kind of exhaustion that only grief can produce. Some lingered by the pool or sat on the Lincoln Memorial steps for a little while longer, trying to process, to reconcile.

This was a time of mourning. It was also a time of resolve and a demand to do better for the nation’s poor.

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