Poverty activists plan march on RNC

the Republican National Convention Sept. 2, 20
Texas delegates hold their cowboy hats up on the final night of the Republican National Convention Sept. 2, 2004 at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Photo by Shaun Heasley/Getty Images

The Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign has led marches during the last two Republican and Democratic nominating conventions.

National organizer Cheri Honkala said the planned march on the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul is necessary because so far, poverty issues have been ignored during the presidential campaign.

"(Our goal is) to make sure the whole country understands that poor people are not just going to sit by and watch family members sit by and die because they don't have access to health care and housing in this country," she said.

Honkala said the goal is to bring more attention to the foreclosure crisis, the need for affordable housing and jobs.

"I think it's time for people to get off their couches and stop crying the blues, watching their families be destroyed by losing their homes to foreclosure," she said. "And it's time for us to get organize and get in the streets and begin to march for our lives."

Honkala says the group will march with or without city permits to do so.

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