Tag: William Barber

Poor People Have Not Heard Their Names

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Subverting Empire, Theological Animation1 Comment

barberAn excerpt from Rev. William Barber’s “The Economy Doesn’t Work for Most Americans,” an article published in The Guardian this week. 

One hundred and forty million poor and low-income people in America are a $400 emergency away from not being able to pay their bills next month. That’s 43.5% of the population in the world’s richest nation. While Democrats have championed the middle class and Republicans have promoted tax cuts and corporate welfare, poor people have not heard their names in American public life for the past 40 years, even as the gap between the rich and the poor has grown to levels of inequality we haven’t seen since before the Great Depression.

While both parties work to energize and mobilize their base, it is no accident that the single largest voting bloc in American politics is not those who voted Republican or Democrat in the last presidential election, but those who did not vote at all. Roughly 100 million Americans who were eligible to vote in 2016 didn’t cast a ballot. In 2018, while many celebrated a historic turnout for a midterm election, the numbers of those who didn’t participate were still higher.

Are You Willing to Follow Dr. King Today?

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BarberSome highlights from Rev. William Barber’s 50-minute speech delivered on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day in Tennessee.

We do not celebrate martyrs. You join them.

MLK Jr. preached, but we make a dangerous mistake that his words were just soaring oratory. He preached civil disobedience and he preached a movement to challenge the demons of Jim Crow.

Not only in sanctuary…but he preached and acted in the streets of the nation.

If … it doesn’t lead to the liberation of the sick, poor and oppressed — then preaching is just words with no action,

People love dead prophets, but the question is, “Are you willing to follow Dr. King today?”

We Need a Moral Breakthrough

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BarberAn excerpt from Rev. William Barber’s address presented before the 74th Union for Reform Judaism Biennial convention on December 6, 2017.

We are here tonight, and 62 years ago would have been the fifth day of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Today, when the prophetic actions of Rosa Parks like Shiphra and Puah in the Bible, chose to challenge the Pharaoh of Jim Crow. She sat down and birthed a movement on a stage that produced a prophet like Moses named Martin. She sparked a nonviolent revolution. Continue reading “We Need a Moral Breakthrough” →

The Gangsterization of Our Politics

On By RadicalDiscipleshipIn Race, Subverting Empire2 Comments

barberFrom William Barber’s recent comments in a Democracy Now interview:

Before all of the latest news, Judge Kavanaugh, first of all, was being put forward after McConnell in the Senate held open a seat for over 420 days, in a way that we had not seen since the Civil War. They literally denied a president his right to nominate someone and for them to have a hearing. This was the same Judiciary Committee that denied two African-American women a hearing to be appointed to the federal court, the 1st District—Eastern District in North Carolina. So the process was bad from the beginning. Continue reading “The Gangsterization of Our Politics” →

The Greatest Patriotism

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SackclothA Memorial Day message from Rev. Dr. William J. Barber and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Co-Chairs of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

Dear Movement family,

As the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival prepares for our third week of direct action, the nation pauses for Memorial Day weekend. Listening to many, including veterans in this movement, we chose to focus this week on our challenge to militarism and the war economy as well as the proliferation of gun violence in the US. We believe the greatest patriotism for moral agents is insisting that America become a more perfect union. Continue reading “The Greatest Patriotism” →

Praying and Preying

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BarberThis week Rev. William Barber was asked about the preacher who was asked to pray at the opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem. The white Southern Baptist pastor has spoken out against Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, gay men and lesbians, Mormonism. Barber’s response:

That same group of people will go in and pray—P-R-A-Y—with President Trump and his other allies in the Congress and bless them, while Trump and his allies are preying—P-R-E-Y-I-N-G—on the poor and the broken and the hurting and the least among. It is sad. It is theological malpractice. It is costing people their lives. It is mean-spirited. And the world should stand up and speak out against it. And clergy and people of faith should speak out against it. And we should stop, in the media, assigning “Christian” and “evangelical” to persons like this. If we say it, we should say it in quotes, or we should call it what it is. It is not Christianity. It is not evangelicalism. It is not the religion of Jesus, who, in his first sermon, said to follow Jesus was to preach good news to the poor, to care for the brokenhearted, to provide liberty and healing to the bruised, and to declare the acceptable year of the lord. Nothing in that says endorse killing, endorse hatred, endorsed meanness.

Moral Activism

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PovertyThe Poor People’s Campaign is growing, organizing for action in 2018.  Sign up to join the coalition of 25,000+ here.  A summary from Rev. William Barber:

A truly moral agenda must be anti-racist, anti-poverty, pro-justice, pro-labor, transformative and deeply rooted and built within a fusion coalition.  It would ask of all policy, is the policy Constitutionally consistent, morally defensible and economically sane.  We call this moral analysis and moral articulation which leads to moral activism.

The Choice is Ours

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DEM 2016 ConventionDay 34 of our Lenten Journey through Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech.

Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message—of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise, we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

From Rev. William Barber II (photo above) in an interview with Religion Dispatches: 

Be open to the Spirit moving us in new ways. Recently I was in New York City to receive an award from a philanthropist. After I’d received the award, this 90 year-old elder’s son invited me to walk to where his dad was seated as he has some difficulty walking these days. But he insisted upon getting up and grabbed my hand with great passion. “I’m so glad to be giving my money this year to a Movement that I know is making a difference,” he said. Continue reading “The Choice is Ours” →

Prophetic Moral Challenge

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barberFrom the Intro to Rev. William Barber’s recent Op-Ed:

President Trump’s first appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast met awkward silence on Thursday (Feb 2) as he began his comments by touting ratings when he was on “The Apprentice.” Unpracticed in the public performance of piety, the candidate who was praised for “telling it like it is” made even his white evangelical base momentarily uneasy as he demonstrated the impotence of their religion to overcome his narcissism. Excused as a “baby Christian” during his campaign, the teen-like Trump continues to expose the hypocrisy of white evangelicalism.  Continue reading “Prophetic Moral Challenge” →

The Moral Revival

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william barberBy Will O’Brien

Several of us attended the “Repairers of the Breach” Moral Revival Tour with Rev. William Barber when it rolled into town on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention on July 25. Will O’Brien write the following short reflection (originally published on the Red Letter Christians blog.)

The Friends Central Meeting on Cherry Street in Center City Philadelphia has probably never reeled and rocked like it did on Monday night. Rev. William Barber from the Moral Mondays campaign in North Carolina brought his Moral Revival Tour to our city, slyly scheduling it just as the Democratic National Convention was starting to convene a few miles south at the Wells Fargo Center. Lots of spirited singing, praying, and mighty preaching, all geared toward the prophetic vision of justice. Continue reading “The Moral Revival” →