PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Activists disrupted a poverty lesson at Philadelphia City Hall, persuading the councilman who organized the event to instead go on a tour of one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods.
The surprise turn of events, in a city where more than 1 out of 4 residents lives in poverty, occurred as city council members and staff had gathered Tuesday in a gilded conference room to take on the roles of impoverished people applying for social services.
“We don’t need simulation here,” Black Lives Matter activist Asa Khalif said after grabbing the microphone, his voice then rising. “We can take you to those places where people are actually in poverty and actually would need help and assistance.”
Councilman Curtis Jones Jr. obliged. “We could go now,” he said.
And so he and two activists left, taking a train on a 20-minute trip from the center of Philadelphia to a blighted neighborhood where they heard from residents about people publicly injecting heroin, alleged police harassment and fatal shootings.