Tuesday African-American clergy from across the nation convened on Capitol Hill to call on Congress to reject the budget proposed by the Trump administration and the health care bill.
Faith leaders addressed the many ways the proposed budget will negatively affect African-American families and communities, including deep cuts to education, Medicaid, civil rights departments in government agencies, community development block grants and housing vouchers as well as creating a hospitable environment for predatory lending.
The African-American clergy, who represent national denominations, state ecumenical bodies and local congregations, went to the nation’s capital from states and districts whose representatives in Congress have influence over the budget process and health care.
“Taking health care from millions of Americans is not conservative policy but political violence. This proposed tax break for the richest Americans is the most extreme theft from poor and working people since labor of enslaved Africans was stolen to build this country,” said the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach. “My Lord turned over the tables when poor people were being exploited in the public square of his day. I have no choice but to nonviolently resist a deconstruction of health care that I know will kill thousands of my neighbors.”
The Rev. Traci Blackmon, executive minister of Justice & Witness Ministries for United Church of Christ, added that the health care bill is a form of “wickedness” and denies access to health care for an additional 22 million of the most vulnerable citizens.
“Any health care coverage that provides less for the least than it does for the most is wickedness,” she said. “Any legislation that punishes poverty for the sake of greed is wickedness. We are not here to stand for or against any political party. We are not here to play partisan games with any human life.”