WASHINGTON

A multiracial, intergenerational crowd of thousands of social justice activists, union workers and people of faith prayed, cheered and listened intently last Saturday as speakers on the National Mall called for a re-energized approach to fighting poverty and other social ills they say are plaguing the country.

Organizers of the Poor People’s Campaign urged those who had traveled from as far away as Alaska and Alabama to raise their hands in a show of commitment to educating voters in the days ahead.

The Rev. William J. Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, set a serious tone for the gathering and what he hopes will follow.

“The problem in Capitol Hill is they don’t listen and so we’re not going to model that,” said Rev. Barber as he shushed the crowd assembled under occasionally rainy skies and asked for their attention. “This is not fellowship. This is revolution.”

The campaign is an echo of the one organized 50 years ago by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that brought together a wide range of activists, including Jews and Christians, farm workers and Appalachian poverty volunteers.

Where Dr. King focused on the “three evils” of racism, poverty and militarism, the new version has added environmental justice.

Kicking off on Mother’s Day with rallies in cities across the United States and ending with the gathering on the Mall, the campaign’s 40 days was intended to energize a similar interfaith effort on a host of mostly liberal causes.

“By God we have,” said the Rev. Liz Theoharis, Rev. Barber’s co-chair and a Presbyterian Church USA minister, referring to the campaign’s aim of rallying activists for voting rights, homeless advocacy, equitable education and improved wages. “Just over the past 40 days, over the past few months, we have come together. There are state coordinating committees in 40 states across this country building the Poor People’s Campaign.”

Rev. Barber, a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) minister and former state president of the North Carolina NAACP known for his “Moral Mondays” rallies in North Carolina, said the campaign was nonpartisan. Speakers decried Trump administration policies — especially the recent separation of migrant families at the U.S. border — among the lists of problems in the country.

Civil rights veteran Jesse Jackson Sr., a leader of the original Poor People’s Campaign, urged the granting of asylum for children and families that had been separated at the border and stressed the importance of Election Day.

“We have the power to take our nation back in November,” said Rev. Jackson, as he asked the audience to repeat: “I can vote. I will vote. I must vote.”

The Rev. Traci Blackmon, a member of the campaign’s national steering committee and United Church of Christ justice leader, pointed to the Capitol as she advised people on how to continue organizing back home.

“We are not just here to march; we are here to mobilize,” Rev. Blackmon said. “November is coming and you’re either with us or you are evicted from the house. We are marching now to serve notice: They have just a little while to get on board or find somewhere else to live.”

The marchers delivered letters to Congress in which Revs. Barber and Theoharis cite the tens of millions of poor people in the United States with limited food, housing and utilities and the passage of new voter restrictions in 23 states since 2010.

“This is the true hacking of our democracy, allowing people to win office who then deny health care, living wages, cut necessary social programs and push policies that promote mass incarceration, hurt immigrants and devastate our environment,” they wrote. “These racist laws hurt not just people of color, but poor whites whose lives are upended by the politicians put in office by extremist voter suppression.”

Three activists from Pennsylvania, two young white women and an older black woman, met during the recent weeks of state-level organizing.

Savannah Kinsey and Hope Koss of Johnstown, Pa., attend an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregation and have worked with Put People First PA!, seeking universal health care in their state, while Tree Muldrow’s cause was the Coalition to Abolish Death by Incarceration.

“We all have similar needs and desires and we’re learning that,” said Ms. Muldrow, a “spiritual, God-believing” 66-year-old. “And we’re bringing that back to our own people and we can show people how much we are connected. We all have the same needs. Poverty affects us all.”

The Rev. Kelly Brown Douglas, dean of New York’s Episcopal Divinity School and canon theologian of the Washington National Cathedral, said she expects churches to continue the movement’s momentum.

“We’re doing this not out of this notion of hate for what is, but motivated by the love of God for what can be,” she said.

Rev. Barber, who spoke at the cathedral during the campaign, has visited locations across the country since May, including a “toxic tour” sponsored by the Illinois branch of the campaign that highlighted ecological devastation in poor neighborhoods in Chicago affected by manganese, a toxic metal that has been linked to lower IQ scores in children.

The Rev. Betty Landis, an interim minister at an ELCA congregation in Chicago, and her husband Darryl Jones, joined Rev. Barber’s tour and other direct-action events in Illinois, including a protest against ecological devastation at the capital in Springfield where Rev. Landis was arrested. She has a court date in August.

“It was absolutely worth it,” said Rev. Landis, one of more than 2,000 people who were arrested in 37 states over the 40-day campaign during activities that involved civil disobedience. “As of now, it is what I feel called to do.”