For Planning Purposes: April 30, 2020
Contact: Heather Cabral | heather@westendstrategy.com | 202-550-6880
Erin Williams | ewilliams@faithinaction.org | 202-748-0699
WASHINGTON – Yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) joined Pastor Michael McBride, director of LIVE FREE, and W. Kamau Bell for a Facebook Live discussion about the Masks for the People campaign and the newly-created Essential Workers Bill of Rights. This discussion was a special addition of the weekly Facebook Live event that McBride and Bell hold every Monday on Facebook Live to discuss Masks for the People.
Click here to view the full discussion.
“It’s the people that are cleaning the hospitals…it’s the people that are making the deliveries and it’s the people that are taking care of the elderly. They are putting their lives at risk so that we can survive,” said Senator Warren. “You gotta be willing to step up for other human beings.”
Masks for the People was born from the idea that leaders in directly impacted communities must begin to develop supply chains and information systems to help overcome these barriers. The campaign, which launched this month and is a joint project of LIVE FREE and Black Church Action Fund, seeks to secure free masks, sanitizers and testing kits to communities who are otherwise unable to access them. Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter and Square, recently announced that he is donating $1 million to the campaign. The campaign is supported by a number of prominent figures, including Steve Kerr of the Golden State Warriors, filmmaker Ryan Coogler, #MeToo founder Tarana Burke, and other leaders and racial justice advocates from around the country.
Senator Warren has been focused on lifting up essential workers who must face the public amidst the COVID-19 virus, and in the Essential Workers Bill of Rights she co-authored, the bill ensures provisions that include health and safety protections, universal paid sick leave and family and medical leave, and support for child care. “This is ultimately about respect for the people that are putting their lives on the line for us everyday,” said Warren. “Stand with essential workers because now is the moment to do this and recognize the importance of human dignity. “If somebody is going to put their lives on the line to stock the grocery shelves. They must get hazardous pay.”
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The LIVE FREE Campaign is a campaign of Faith in Action, the largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network in the United States. LIVE FREE is committed to ending structural discrimination and the mass criminalization of people of color by mobilizing the faith community to reduce the number of gun-related shootings and homicides, decrease the number of individuals incarcerated and increase opportunity for those caught in these deadly cycles.
Faith in Action, formerly known as PICO National Network, is the largest grassroots, faith-based organizing network in the United States. The nonpartisan organization works with 1,000 religious congregations in more than 200 cities and towns through its 46 local and state federations. For more information, visit www.faithinaction.org.
Faith in Action is a 501c(3). Faith in Action and its affiliates are non-partisan and are not aligned explicitly or implicitly with any candidate or party. We do not endorse or support candidates for office.
