Rally at West Virginia Capitol critiques Carson, defends food stamps

With criticisms of the federal proposal to raise subsidized housing rents, and calls to protect food stamp benefits and health coverage, the “Poor People’s Campaign” kicked off 40 days of planned in-state action on Monday.

Organizers of the movement, meant to mirror the campaign the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was planning when he was assassinated, said other states are taking part, with plans for a June 23 rally in Washington, D.C.

Amy Jo Hutchison, an organizer with the Our Children, Our Future anti-child-poverty effort, spoke to about 100 people at Monday’s rally on the Kanawha River side of the state Capitol.

Hutchison, one of three chairpeople of the national campaign’s West Virginia branch, said she is a working poor mother of two. She said she’s struggled with a lack of health insurance, saying she’s now “doctoring a gallbladder issue that I’m having with herbs, essential oils and prayer because I can’t afford for the emergency room to be my primary care.”

Read more: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/politics/rally-at-wv-capitol-critiques-carson-defends-food-stamps/article_09352788-496d-5eec-85f2-3ce9b88bb179.html