Barber is protesting Republican overreach
Published April 15, 2014
by Lisa Rab, Mother Jones, April 14, 2014.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, the Reverend William Barber II reclined uncomfortably in a chair in his office, sipping bottled water as he recovered from two hours of strenuous preaching. When he was in his early 20s, Barber was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a painful arthritic condition affecting the spine. Still wearing his long black robes, the 50-year-old minister recounted how, as he'd proclaimed in a rolling baritone from the pulpit that morning, "a crippled preacher has found his legs."
It began a few days before Easter 2013, recalled Barber, pastor at the Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and president of the state chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). "On Maundy Thursday, they chose to crucify voting rights," he said.
"They" are North Carolina Republicans, who in November 2012 took control of the state Legislature and the governor's mansion for the first time in more than a century. Among their top priorities—along with blocking Medicaid expansion and cutting unemployment benefits and higher-education spending—was pushing through a raft of changes to election laws, including reducing the number of early voting days, ending same-day voter registration, and requiring ID at the polls. "That's when a group of us said, 'Wait a minute, this has just gone too far,'" Barber said.
On the last Monday of April 2013, Barber led a modest group of clergy and activists into the state legislative building in Raleigh. They sang "We Shall Overcome," quoted the Bible, and blocked the doors to the Senate chambers. Barber leaned on his cane as capitol police led him away in handcuffs.
That might have been the end of just another symbolic protest, but then something happened: The following Monday, more than 100 protesters showed up at the capitol. Over the next few months, the weekly crowds at the "Moral Mondays" protests grew to include hundreds, and then thousands, not just in Raleigh but also in towns around the state. The largest gathering, in February, drew more than 15,000 people. More than 900 protesters have been arrested for civil disobedience over the past year. Copycat movements have started in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama in response to GOP legislation regarding Medicaid and gun control.
With Moral Mondays, Barber has channeled the pent-up frustration of North Carolinians who were shocked by how quickly their state had been transformed into a laboratory for conservative policies. "He believed we needed to kind of burst this bubble of 'There's nothing we can do for two years until the next election,'" explains Al McSurely, a longtime NAACP organizer. But what may be most notable about Barber's new brand of civil rights activism is how he's taken a partisan fight and presented it as an issue that transcends party or race—creating a more sustained pushback against Republican overreach than anywhere else in the country.
Barber's activism is rooted in his family's history. In the 1960s, his parents moved back to eastern North Carolina from Indianapolis to help desegregate the local schools. His father, also a preacher, taught science at a formerly all-white high school. His mother became the school's first black office manager. Students called her "nigger" before they finally learned to call her "Mother Barber."
Barber fears that Republican lawmakers' efforts to expand private-school vouchers will resegregate the very schools his parents worked to integrate. As NAACP president, he helped pass legislation establishing same-day voter registration and expanding death penalty appeals—bills that Republicans repealed in the last legislative session.
In 1993, a flare-up of his condition left him hospitalized, and he spent the next dozen years relying on a walker to get around. Exercise, faith, and "a little miracle and medicine" fueled his recovery—along with a good health plan. "I never want to have health insurance and see other members of the human family denied," he says. "It's immoral." He shakes his head at lawmakers who receive generous benefits only to try to deny their constituents access to Obamacare or expanded Medicaid. "The logic doesn't compute."
Barber says his emphasis on morality is inspired by his predecessors in the civil rights movement. "They first had to win the moral high ground, and they had to capture the attention and consciousness of the nation," he explains. "When those two things came together, it gave space for people like Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was a segregationist, to step out of his normal pattern of politics into a new way." Barber says that Moral Mondays' broad appeal is reflected in state Republicans' sagging popularity: A February poll found that just 36 percent of North Carolina voters approved of Gov. Pat McCrory's job performance; 28 percent approved of the General Assembly's.
With North Carolina Democrats still in disarray following their drubbing in 2012, some progressives are looking to Barber to lead them out of the wilderness. "It's our job to take this energy and turn it into reality at the polls," says Democratic Party chairman Randy Voller.
But to Barber, the movement's success is not tied to the ballot box. Rather, it's in moments like the cold Saturday morning in February when tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of the capital. Black, white, gay, and straight, they came from churches and synagogues wearing rainbow flags for marriage equality, pink caps for Planned Parenthood, and stickers reading "North Carolina: First in Teacher Flight." When it was Barber's turn to speak, the crowd fell silent.
"Make no mistake—this is no mere hyperventilation or partisan pouting," he intoned, his voice rising and breaking. "This is a fight for the future and soul of our state. It doesn't matter what the critics call us…They can deride us, they can try to deflect from the issue. And we understand that, because they can't debate us on the issue. They can't make their case on moral and constitutional grounds."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/william-barber-moral-monday-north-carolina
April 15, 2014 at 8:20 am
TP Wohlford says:
Mother Jones. Oh yeah, those guys.
True story -- I was in the IndyCar media center for a race, some 10 days before the Mother Jones / Mitt Romney 47% story broke loose. There was a journalist in there that already had the story, already had the audio, and he was deeply interested in sharing it with like-minded journalists to make sure that the impact was massive.
Or shall I say, "Journo-lists"?
So yeah, THOSE guys.
Barber is protesting something, blah blah blah, he wouldn't be Bill unless he was protesting something, ya know? Mardi Gras float on feet for sure.
April 15, 2014 at 10:12 am
Norm Kelly says:
Barber made it in the news again? Why this time? Has he done or said something worthwhile, newsworthy, worthy to be covered? It would be the first time in a VERY long time. Most of the time he just repeats race-bating talking points. Much like Alsharpton. I guess I'll continue reading, but I don't expect much.
Barber is the president of the NC chapter of the NAALCP. Every time he opens his mouth, not only does he prove that he's a racist, a race bater, but he proves that he stands only for LIBERAL colored people. If he EVER took a Conservative stand, he would fall over.
When the Republicans took control of Raleigh for the first time in a century, the goal was clear. Undo the damage done by the liberals before them. Get spending under control. Stop taxing every darn thing that moved. And the DemocRATs were getting to the point where they needed to tax non-moving things in order to pay for their continuing desire to spend more money. The direction of the state, like almost every other state controlled by liberals/Demoncrats, was a downward spiral. Spend more. Tax more. Penalize success. Make it harder for business to do business and to hire people.
Blocking medicare expansion in support of socialized medicine, what libs call Obamacare, was a wise idea. Expanding medicare is going to be outrageously costly and will destroy state budgets. Caring about tax payers was more important in Raleigh than supporting a socialist president with no idea how to run anything let alone a country. We can only pray that Raleigh continues to put tax payers first and special interests second.
Cutting unemployment benefits was also a plan to be more concerned for the tax payers and future of our state than it was for the feel-good that libs always strive for. The libs, when they controlled Raleigh, continued to go along with Washington's desire to continue to spend money when we couldn't afford it. Not only is Washington in a stupid amount of debt, their plan, along with the libs in Raleigh, was to drive us further into debt. The worst part about the libs desire for debt was that there was no end in sight. The libs in Raleigh wanted to make people feel good about supporting the unemployed but wanted us to ignore that they borrowed money from Washington to do it. They wanted us to ignore the FACT that they had no idea how to pay the money back, when they would pay the money back, or even how they would continue to pay the extended benefits without borrowing even MORE money from Washington. How is this a good deal for anything or anyone? And the Republicans didn't simply eliminate unemployment benefits. They asked permission from Washington to reduce the amount being paid over the extended time so that our state might possibly be able to afford to continue to pay these benefits. The response from Washington was as it always is: you go along with Washington's plan or you don't play at all. There are NO EXCEPTIONS to Washington's plan to bankrupt the state. The Republicans took over Raleigh and asked permission to control the debt. Washington said NO; once again proving the Demons in Washington are simply the party of NO. We were to be forced to go further into debt by a group of people who think $17 TRILLION is chump change. Where is the plan from Demons? What are Demons willing to do? If the only thing Barber can do is protest progress, calling it racism at every turn, has ANYONE asked Barber what HIS plan is/would be? If he doesn't have a solution, why open his mouth at all? Why doesn't ANYONE in the media ask him the hard questions of what he would have the legislature do? Why hasn't any media-type asked Barber why he thinks the Demon lack of a plan but desire for debt was a good 'plan'? Why hasn't anyone asked Barber what his suggestion to the Demons would be for eliminating debt and getting people BACK TO WORK?
None of the election law changes are out of line with other states rules/laws, as well as no one including Barber being able to show how this is a racist plan. No one has been able to demonstrate why this will be such a hardship on blacks. It's just that Republicans are trying to make it more difficult for liberals to vote. Has anyone asked Barber or any other lib why they believe their supporters can't prove who they are? Has anyone asked how having 7 days of early voting prevents BLACKS from voting in our state, but liberal states have only 1 day of voting yet blacks are able to vote? Of course not cuz if some media-type did their job and asked the 'tough' questions, the entire argument about this being racist would fall apart. This could cause some libs who vote to see through the idiocy and realize they were being misled by Barber and the media all along. This would allow some lib voters to question what else the left if misleading them on; allowing them to wonder if the Republicans were all that bad after all. When you have no argument, claim racism. It's worked for the occupant of the White House. It's worked for Alsharpton. It's worked for Jesse Jackson. Why can't it work for Barber & libs in NC? At some point it will stop working because people actually do have the ability to THINK.
Transforming NC into a laboratory for conservative policies frightens people? Why? Does transforming our state or nation into a laboratory for liberal/socialist policies frighten people? It should. Because everywhere that socialist policies have been implemented, they have monumentally failed. Not just failed slightly. But on a grand scale. The opposite can also be proved true. Conservative policies have proven to be extremely successful, everywhere they are tried. The founding of our nation was based on conservative ideas: self-reliance, responsibility, community (on the local level, you libs!), de-centralized control, limited central government, free-markets unencumbered by central planner control. Even today in states where conservative ideas are allowed to be tried, these states are more prosperous than the states where liberal/socialist ideas flourish. Take Detroit as an example. Take New York as another example. The list of places controlled by socialists is long enough to find perfect examples of failure. But our national history is proof that conservative ideas are SUCCESSFUL every time.
What does same day voting & registration provide? The opportunity to scam the system. There's time between elections for EVERYONE to register to vote. Allowing it on the same day a ballot is cast is a foolish idea, just waiting for fraud to occur. It's not racist to say that fraud needs to be prevented on election day. It is fraud to claim that there's insufficient time to register before voting day and that we should allow anyone who comes in to fill out a ballot. Prove who you are FIRST, then we'll let you know if you can vote. This is not a racist issue, as Barber would have us believe. It's a trust issue. And I for one do NOT trust same day registration. Where were you all the other days?
On one point Barber is right. This IS a fight for the future and soul of our state. Will we be another state that succumbs to the feel-good nature of socialism? Will we become another state that penalizes success? Will we be just another group of people who believe blacks are helpless and hapless, that they NEED government to take care of them? Will we be another state that believes because you are black you are automatically disadvantaged? Will we be another group of people, like Reid and Obama, who see skin color first and everything else second; who automatically assume because you are black you can't speak proper English, that you are uneducated or under-educated? Or will our state become one where people are people? All people will be treated as if they have the ability to think, take care of themselves, care about their fellow man because they WANT to not because we are FORCED to by government mandate? Will we be another state that pits those who have against those who lack, stealing money from the haves to give to the have-nots, with virtually no care as to why either group exists? If you don't try, you probably will be a have-not, but that's not automatically the fault of the haves. But to get a lib to admit this is impossible. Those have-nots are NOT that way because someone prevented them from being successful at whatever their endeavor was/is. Most have-nots are that way because of their own actions. Don't penalize me because someone else doesn't make the effort or is foolish with what they do have. Don't go socialist/democrat party/lib/leftie on me and FORCE me, steal from me, to support your hot button item. Libs prefer to spend MY money on THEIR causes than to take responsibility on their own. Conservatives expect everyone to invest in their own hot button items, that way everybody gets to choose and make a difference.
Barber is entitled to his beliefs. But when he's wrong, I don't expect media-types to put him on a pedestal the way they have/are. He is first and foremost a liberal. Secondly, he's a racist, race-bater. Third he might be a preacher. But he's wrong when it comes to his desire for the direction for our state. And he's wrong on his desired direction for black people. Since he's so wrong, why is he covered so lovingly be media-types?
