Kansas City 99% 2.52

Last fall a new social movement caught fire across the country. As a handful of people put up tents in New York City, to protest Wall Street greed and the exploding gap between the rich and poor, we also took action in our city. After several months of doing our part to build the 99% movement locally, today we launch KC 99 to maintain and grow this movement. And we do so with a renewed sense of hope for the future. Optimism based on our nation’s history and what this new movement has taught us: the 99% has real power to change our lives and America when we stand and act together.

Today’s 99% movement is part of a larger history. We are part of an American tradition of working and poor people who continuously engage in efforts to improver our lives. These movements have taken many forms, from the women’s fight for full citizenship, workers’ struggles to have a voice and economic dignity on-the-job, to the gay liberation movement, and the Civil Rights battles of the 1960s. These movements made it clear to all that racism, bigotry, and inequality has no place in America.

It’s our movements that advance the 99% and have made the country what it is today. But make no mistake about it. Our progress isn’t charity from the 1%. The extension of our nation’s promise to all of its people – of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” and “equal justice for all” – were the fruits of hard won battles of the people, for the people. Fights waged in our workplaces, neighborhoods, at lunch-counters, in the halls of government, and at the ballot box. And it is the same kind of action by the 99% today that holds the potential to close the gap between the promise of America and the reality of our daily lives.

We have much to learn from these movements, and still much progress to make. But we know the 99% has the capacity to stand up and organize —in our workplaces, at school, and in our neighborhoods – to take our destinies into our own hands, to write our own history. It’s up to us where we as a people go. Our story as a nation is long, but it tells us one thing for sure: we either go up or we go down as one people. At this time, in this city, and with this movement, the 99% in Kansas City is on our way up.