(Religion News Service) — With COVID-19 restrictions preventing an intended in-person rally in Washington D.C., at least a million supporters of the Poor People’s Campaign reportedly tuned in Saturday (June 20) to watch a mix of live speeches and pre-recorded clips of liberal religious leaders calling for a “moral revolution” and the enactment of a sweeping policy agenda focused on the poor.

“We are gathered today to call for a radical redistribution of political and economic power, a revolution of moral values to demonstrate the power of poor and impacted people banding together, demanding that this country change for the better,” said Rev. Liz Theoharis, a Presbyterian minister who co-chairs the campaign with Rev. William Barber, a Disciples of Christ minister and pastor in Goldsboro, North Carolina.

Her remarks to the “National Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March on Washington Digital Gathering” were introduced by Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr., who planned the original Poor People’s Campaign in 1968.

Bernice King, who runs the King Center in Atlanta, said she was joining the modern iteration of the campaign to “stand with the 140 million poor people and low wealth people urging America to address with the fierce urgency of now the big issue of poverty and race.”

“I come here as a Muslim because my faith teaches me that I must stand with the most vulnerable people in my society,” Sarsour said in a clip taken from a past Poor People’s Campaign rally.

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