Former presidential candidate John Edwards called on Northwestern students Sunday to help improve the lives of the 37 million Americans living in poverty.
“You have to rise up and be heard,” Edwards said during his speech in the Owen L. Coon Forum. He encouraged students to champion the poor on issues such as minimum wage and access to college.
About 600 NU students and community members crowded in the auditorium for Edwards’ one-hour, sold out speech and question-and-answer session, sponsored by the College Democrats.
The speech was part of his “New America Initiative” and “Working Society” campaigns, created to help poor families in the United States. Edwards has been promoting his campaigns in speeches across the nation.
Edwards, a former North Carolina senator and the 2004 Democratic vice presidential candidate, said the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina revealed America’s glaring economic disparity.
He urged students today to be proactive in the fight for America’s poor, just as they spearheaded the fight for civil rights in the 1960s.
“Young people have changed this country before,” he said. “You can change this country again.”
Edwards spent time in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and witnessed its aftermath. He met a man who woke up at 5 a.m. every day to look for work, an example of a person who should be helped, he said.
“I am absolutely certain that there is a hunger in America for this country to be involved in something big and important,” Edwards said. “We have a huge opportunity here.”
Edwards called for the economic and social integration of poor communities in the United States and referred to the impoverished neighborhoods devastated by Katrina.
“How long is it going to take us to figure out that clustering poor people together is not good?” he said.
These communities also revealed a larger theme of racial disparity, he said. Of the 37 million people who wake up in poverty every day, Edwards said blacks carry most of the burden.
“Poverty does have a face in this country, and it is largely a face of color,” he said.
Unfair stereotypes label America’s poor as lazy and irresponsible, but the United States provides little assistance to help struggling citizens, Edwards said. He called for increased support for the poor, including accessible higher education and services to help families.
He described a system in part of North Carolina that covers the costs of college tuition and books for qualified students committed to working at least 10 hours a week during their first year.
Wages also need to be increased to accommodate a sufficient standard of living, Edwards said.
“No one can live on $5.15 an hour,” he said. “What we ought to be talking about is not a minimum wage but a living wage, a wage that will actually support families.”
During the question-and-answer session, he added, “You can’t say to a 30-year-old single mother of five, ‘We expect you to go to work, but we’re not going to do anything about your kids,'” referring to a lack of free day care for working parents.
The audience burst into applause and gave Edwards a standing ovation when he finished.
Weinberg freshman Judd Cramer said the speech was motivating and encouraged him to remain active in community service.
“It just reaffirmed my beliefs,” he said.
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