The Rev. William Barber Is Bringing MLKs Poor Peoples Campaign Back to Life

[G_j]

https://www.thenation.com/article/rev-william-barber-is-bringing-mlks-poor-peoples-campaign-back-to-life/

Barber is stepping down from his post at the North Carolina NAACP to lead what he calls a “national moral revival.”
By Dani McClainTwitter

The Rev. William Barber II announced last week that he will step down as president of the North Carolina NAACP and lead a new national initiative that aims to end poverty and begin what Barber calls “a national moral revival.” This new Poor People’s Campaign will pick up where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. left off 50 years ago when he turned his focus to uniting poor people across lines of race and geography and pushing their priorities onto the federal agenda.

The campaign, which launches in partnership the Kairos Center at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, will bring together organizations with a longstanding commitment to confronting poverty and inequality—local and national groups such as Picture the Homeless in New York and the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization. Barber said a task force made up of poor people and economists, theologians, and other experts will in September release a report called “The Souls of Poor Folks” that will lay out the campaign’s agenda.

Much of the action will kick off next year, when the campaign plans to stage nonviolent direct action in 25 state capitols and Washington, DC, Barber said Monday at an event at the Davie Street Presbyterian Church in Raleigh. The states chosen represent the worst of the nation’s current political climate: Their governors refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Their legislatures have passed voter-suppression laws in recent years. They lack living-wage laws and employment and housing protections for LGBTQ people.

“Extremism is at work in other states and has gained power in all three branches of our federal government, much as it did here four years ago,” Barber said Monday in North Carolina. “We know that the way to change the nation is to nationalize state movements. We have to do it with a state-up model.”

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[hamsterjill]

1. Love me some Reverend Dr. Barber

My first exposure to him was his speech at the Democratic National Convention. I've followed him since and love what this man teaches.

To me, he is what Christianity should be instead of the hijacked Christianity of the right wingers.

[shenmue]

2. Yes

[Lee-Lee]

3. I hate to lose him from work here in NC but if I have to

Him going National is the best way for it to happen.

[G_j]

4. absolutely

I'm in NC also. Time we share him. The country needs him!