A noon-time rally is planned for this Saturday at Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church in Newark with hopes of getting Governor Phil Murphy to focus more on the racial disparities in wealth, in access to the ballot box and in criminal justice.
Now that the Governor has been in office for nearly 10 months, the head of the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice Ryan Haygood wants to see action. Haygood others are organizing the “Rally for the 94 Percent. Haygood came into the WBGO studios to chat with News Director Doug Doyle.
Haygood, an attorney, says he and others met with Governor Murphy in May and discuss the most pressing issues facing the black community. When asked why a rally instead of just setting up a meeting with the Governor? Haygood says they've already had meetings with Governor Murphy.
"We're going to have a march from Avon Avenue School starting at eleven o'clock. We'll walk down Seymour Avenue to the Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, which is about five blocks away. We'll have a rally there at noon (Saturday, October 27th). There will be alot of powerful speakers who will lift up theses issues but this is a really a march to a rally to move police. We're encouraging folks to use their voices to vote, but we also after voting, use our votes to hold elected officials accountable. This is not an anti-Murphy rally. In fact, we look forward to working with him to push these issues forward. But sometimes you know we learned this from President Barack Obama, when he was in office, he encouraged advocates if they wanted things from him, he'd say you have to make me do those things."
Haygood says there's historical significance to holding the rally at Mount Calvary Missionary Baptist Church. Tha's where Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke 50 years ago to build support for the Poor People’s Campaign.
For more information about the march and Rally for the 94 percent, you can go to njisj.org.
You'll hear more from Ryan Haygood on the WBGO Journal this Saturday morning at 6:30. The entire interview is below.
Click at the top of the page to hear Doug Doyle's newscast feature on the rally.
