For three days in October 2024, a bus crisscrossed the Mississippi Delta region carrying dozens of community leaders, legislators and representatives from aid groups, bringing them into rural communities where people who most need their services and leadership live.
That Southern Poverty Law Center outreach effort was so successful – and the challenges facing people in underserved communities so dire – that the second Truth, Poverty and Democracy Tour has expanded to five days, which kicked off in Jackson, Mississippi.
Attendees sat in on a legislative hearing about the effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) at the State Capitol before participating in several meetings centered on the quickly fraying social safety net and ways in which OBBBA is eliminating services and opportunities in rural communities…