[F]ourteen members of an anti-poverty campaign were arrested in Vermont’s Statehouse Monday evening after conducting an hours-long sit-in and refusing to leave the capitol building when it closed.
Police charged the nonviolent protesters with misdemeanor counts of unlawful trespass at about 7 p.m., nearly three hours after the Statehouse shut its doors to the public, according to the Capitol Police Department.
Monday’s protesters were members of the Vermont Poor People’s Campaign, a local branch of a national organization modelled on the grassroots movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1960s.
Protesters are calling for a “moral revival” and fight to eliminate poverty, systemic racism and militarism.
On Monday afternoon, about 75 people took part in a rally on the Statehouse lawn before dozens moved into the building around 3 p.m. At about 4:15 p.m., when the building was closing, demonstrators were asked to leave, and most did.
But 14 ignored the request, knowing that they faced possible arrest, according to Ellen Kaye, a member of the Vermont Poor People’s Campaign coordinating committee.
“We thought to dramatize this issue in a way that is not as easily ignored,” she said. “When you risk arrest you may go to jail, you almost definitely will go to court and that’s another place to continue to have this conversation.”
Kaye, who was arrested, said she believes lawmakers in Vermont and across the country aren’t focusing on rooting out poverty and systemic racism.
“We have a system that privileges corporate power and the power of wealthy individuals over all of the majority of the people in this country,” she said. “So it’s not about passing pieces of legislation, it’s about shifting the narrative.”
Protesters were arrested at around 7 p.m. on Monday, but weren’t taken to jail, according to Capitol Police Chief Matthew Romei.
“We certainly support and defend people’s right to peaceably assemble and all their First Amendment rights, but our building closes at 4:15 when we’re not in session,” Romei said. “We would certainly rather them appreciate and abide by the rules of the building.”
The nationwide campaign launched this spring with nonviolent protest movements in more than 30 state capitals and Washington, D.C.
It got rolling this month in Vermont, where activists plan on engaging in “highly publicized civil disobedience and direct action” through June, according to the movement’s website.
Organizers say the movement is a continuation of work that King started with an economic justice campaign of the same name in 1968, when he brought thousands of poor Americans to Washington, D.C., to occupy the National Mall for six weeks.
Fifty years later, activists say they’re taking up the “unfinished work” of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign.
The campaign “will force a serious national examination of the enmeshed evils of systemic racism, poverty, militarism and environmental devastation during a key election year,” its website says.
Last Monday, protesters in Vermont took their demonstration to State Street, closing a small portion of the road for an hour, according to Romei. Police made no arrests.
Members of the Vermont Poor People’s Campaign will continue to host rallies and demonstrations through late June.