This past summer members of the Media Mobilizing Project (MMP) out of Philadelphia, PA traveled the country alongside PBS broadcaster Tavis Smiley and Princeton professor Dr. Cornel West on a Poverty Tour of the United States.

Yesterday, October 10th PBS’ Tavis Smiley began broadcast the fruits of this outing in a five-part documentary series called “Understanding Our Struggles and Changing Our Conditions: A Poverty Tour Documentary.” It will continue to run through Friday, October 14th.

Each night of this week, the Tavis Smiley show will be looking at a different theme from the tour.  Each show will feature an 8 – 10 minute video segment (produced by Media Mobilizing Project with the Smiley team) based on footage from the tour. The documentary series reveals the conditions of poverty facing the majority of Americans across the country (who some have recently called “the 99%”) and shares the story of brave everyday people who are fighting back, organizing and empowering their communities to come up with solutions.

Several familiar faces from the U.S. human right to housing movement are spotlighted throughout, including the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign and Take Back the Land – Madison.  Yesterday, the Chicago AEC appeared on the first episode, "Suffering to Speak".  See it here: 

Watch the full episode. See more Tavis Smiley.

The Chicago AEC will again receive more of a feature on the final Friday night episode: "The Fight of the Poor: The Journey to Eliminate Poverty."  Take Back the Land – Madison will be on Wednesday night’s episode: "No Room at the Inn."

The full shows (with the video segments that MMP produced for the shows) will be made available online the day after each show. For more information, visit: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley.

For air-times in your location, or to watch the show online, visit: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/tavissmiley/about/.