WS Chronicle

Bishop Dr. William J. Barber II, president of Repairers of the Breach, a national social justice organization, and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival, announced Monday, Dec. 4, that for 40 days, starting on Mother’s Day, May 13, 2018, there will be “a season of direct action, civil disobedience and voter registration power building.”

“We won’t be silent any more ,” Dr, Barber declared. “…[T]his coalition of impacted people, moral leaders, academics and advocates must build a courageous, fusion long-term, agenda-based movement rooted in nonviolent direct action and voter mobilization. We will stand for a third reconstruction.”

Just back from an international conference at the Vatican in Rome during Thanksgiving week, where the focus was on speaking out on issues affecting the poor and working poor, Bishop Barber also assured that the movement he’s calling for falls right in line with the message of Pope Francis.

Speaking from Washington, D.C., near the U.S. Capitol, Dr. Barber, surrounded by supporters and fellow activists, went on to state that 25 states, including North Carolina, will be the focus of the non-violent “direct action” against poverty, systematic racism, expenditures on war and ecological destruction.

Many observers liken the Moral Revival Dr. Barber is calling for next year to the memorable Moral Monday demonstrations he led as president of the N.C. NAACP in 2013, when thousands of demonstrators from across North Carolina came to Raleigh to protest what they felt were repressive policies from the Republican-led state legislature in 2013.

Approximately 1,000 demonstrators were arrested, but they ultimately inspired similar protests across the country, and as Dr. Barber recently found out during the Vatican conference, even around the world.

Barber is now traveling the nation, recognized as a national civil rights leader.