Multi-faith pilgrims on a moral high road will unify to honor God’s creation at the Peoples Climate March in Washington on the National Mall, April 29. The event, which comes as a crescendo in a week of climate action, is expected to draw tens of thousands from across the U.S. and broad support from 300 sister marches planned across the country and around the world.
“The current Congress and the new administration have taken unbelievably regressive and destructive positions on climate change, denying the most basic climate science, proposing policies that will harm human health, eliminate green jobs, and increase greenhouse gas emissions,” says Rev. Fletcher Harper, national coordinator of the Peoples Climate March faith contingent and executive director of GreenFaith, a global interfaith coalition for the environment. “This is exactly the wrong direction, and it is sinful.”
Congregants from mosques, churches, synagogues, temples and other communities of faith will assemble at 11:00 a.m. on the National Mall at Third Street between Madison Street & Jefferson Drive for songs and chants from diverse traditions.
Community organizer and pastor Rev. Leo Woodberry is making the trip from Florence, South Carolina with congregants from Kingdom Living Temple and the local high school choir. “We are coming to Washington, DC because as people of color and faith, we have a moral obligation to advocate for those who will be most harmed by the Administration’s proposed budget cuts,” he says.
Indonesian-American Nana Firman, Muslim Outreach Coordinator for GreenFaith, feels much the same way, reacting to the harassment and mistreatment of the Muslim community in the first months of the Trump Administration.
“As a Muslim immigrant living in the United States, it has been such a challenging time. As a climate activist, the reality of climate change not only has grave implications for the future of our planet, but also represents one of the great moral and ethical issues of our time,” she says.
“I will be marching to demand an ambitious climate policy, one that meets the severity of the crisis,” says Ven. Bhikku Bodhi, an American Buddhist monk and founding chair of Buddhist Global Relief. “I will be marching to show our government that America must live up to its highest ideals, that we must serve the rest of the world as a model of wise, conscientious, and compassionate leadership.”
At 12:30 p.m. the Keepers of Faith contingent will begin to march with other PCM groups to encircle the White House grounds for a silent sit-in followed by a collective breaking into a wave of sound.
###
