This Memorial day, United Workers will mark the launch of our Right to Health Campaign with a memorial at Springfield Hospital to remember and honor our fallen soldiers in this ever growing war on the poor.
Springfield Hospital is the site of Maryland’s Potter’s field, a mass grave for the unidentified and “unclaimed” cremains of those impoverished Marylanders who were too poor to afford a funeral. According to Maryland law, a family has 72-hours to claim their relatives body and provide for their funerary services. If they cannot afford to claim their loved one, the body is taken by the Anatomy Board and sold in whole or in parts as a cadaver for medical research. Their final resting spot is a mass grave at Springfield Hospital, where a single anonymous plaque marks their contribution to science, but makes no mention of the reality that so many did not consent, did not have a choice.
Since our early days of organizing we have understood the many ways that poverty affects our overall health. Poverty robs us, our families, and our communities of freedom, dignity, and life itself. By honoring and remembering our family and friends, we are claiming that we, the poor and dispossessed, are not anonymous, disposable, and useful only insofar as we produce profit for this system. We are calling out the immorality of poverty in one of the richest states in the richest country in the world and exposing its death-dealing implications.
Join us on Monday, May 27th at 2pm to make visible the life and death stakes of the growing poverty in one of the richest states in the world. Click here to RSVP.
photo taken of the plaque at Springfield Hospital
JUSTICE JAM ART BUILDS
In preparation for our campaign launch and memorial at Springfield Hospital, we have scheduled a series of Justice Jam Art Builds in each of our regions. Last weekend we hosted our first art build in Carroll County.
At these Justice Jams we will focus on the meaning of the Right to Health and ask the questions; In what ways has poverty contributed to the deaths and/or poor health of you or your loved ones? What would it mean for Maryland to guarantee the right to health? We are turning our responses into banners, signs, and art that help to make visible the health crisis of poverty. Come join us for our upcoming Justice Jam Art Builds for a chance to tell your right to health story and to help in creating art for the movement.
Upcoming Justice Jam Art Builds
BALTIMORE:
When: Saturday, May 4th from 12pm-5pm
Where: Transfiguration Catholic Community Church
775 W Hamburg St, Baltimore, MD 21230
RSVP:https://www.unitedworkers.org/rsvp_may_4th_justice_jam_art_build
WESTERN-ALLEGANY:
When: Saturday, May 11th at 4pm
Where: Souls Won
130 Virginia Avenue Cumberland, MD 21502
RSVP: https://www.unitedworkers.org/rsvp_for_right_to_health_art_build