#Rev. William Barber II

[loudlylovingreview]

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove: Americans Don't Want Trump's Illegal War on Iran

We will all pay the costs of this war, though we can’t yet know how high they will be. People protest the involvement of the U.S. in Israel’s war against Iran near the Wilshire Federal Building on June 22, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. The Trump administration has bombed Iran with the largest B-2 bomber strike in U.S. history without obtaining Congressional approval. (Photo by David…

[robertreich]

What Should We Do Now? Live with Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II https://robertreich.substack.com/p/what-should-we-do-now-live-with-rev

[azspot]

We must now say, ‘I am Pope Francis’…

Rev. William Barber II

[sab-cat]

Jan 20, 2025 “We are living in a time when anti-woke rhetoric has become a weapon to divide us and distract us from the real issues of injustice,” King’s daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, said. “To be woke is to be aware of oppression and commitment to justice.” Participants at the annual service rose to their feet as she warned those who would strip away their civil rights: “We will not go back!” she said. The MLK holiday was half of the nation’s double-duty Monday: the inauguration of Donald Trump, who heads back to the White House, created mixed feelings on King’s day for civil rights leaders who have opposed Trump’s rhetoric and stances on race and civil rights. The keynote speaker at Ebenezer then made a reference to Trump, saying he had heard “that somebody had won a mandate.” “I don’t care who you are, if you win 60% of the vote, you never win a mandate to violate justice,” said Bishop William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. “You never win a mandate to hurt people.” He implored people to “tell the truth” about poverty, hunger and social injustice. “The right time to tell the truth is always right now, and telling the truth is the most radical and prophetic moral action you can take in a season of lies,” Barber said.

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Faith leaders were arrested protesting against the GOP Mega Bill Religious leaders arrested praying outside the Capitol, demanding “moral” budgets, as the Senate considers megaville WASHINGTON, D.C. – About 25 faith leaders and religious believers block streets outside the Capitol to pray, carrying barrels covered in statistics on the number of people who lose Medicaid and snaps in each state, if the current budget bill is signed to law.. Minutes later, Capitol police arrested them all and ended what was a protest of 250 people. Within the Capitol, the Senate prepared to vote for a cleaning bill that would cut taxes, cut Medicaid, cut benefits, and expand border security. The protesters chanted, “You will not kill us, and our people. Without a fight.” They took turns crowded, turned into shady patches, placing mini bottles of water and mandarin oranges with a heat of almost 90 degrees. Most were the perfect best religious leaders representing Catholics, Anglicans, Unity Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Jews, Muslims and Christian churches. Other protesters included small children, people in wheelchairs, and people with signs explaining why Medicaid was needed. Bishop William J. Barber, II, told USA Today before the protest that religious leaders are obligated to raise “serious moral opposition” to cut the bill. “It’s moral work, it’s sacred work. If we don’t demonstrate and stand there, we’re doing less than we call,” Barber said. “We should be told to the public squares for the poor, for these poor people, we are meant to say to the country. Rev. Cindy Coleman, 51, of Wilmington, Delaware, Presbyterian USA Church, said he considers the Congressional spending bill immoral. One in five people in her community relies on Medicaid, she said. “This is exactly the wrong way to become a world-leading country. We need to lift ourselves from the bottom and everyone stands up, and this bill is meant to kill our neighbors,” Coleman said. “If this bill is passed, one in five of my neighbors is at risk of death, and that’s not an exaggeration. That’s not an exaggeration.” What they are protesting The car alternated next to a bunch of cas about what Medicaid and food stamp benefits suggestions were, and the car rangrudge. Republicans say the cuts are needed because the program is getting too big and doesn’t need them and is being used by people who are full of waste, fraud and abuse. Two estimates show that between 12 and 20 million people nationwide could lose Medicaid under the deep cuts in the health insurance program proposed by Senate Republicans. Medicaid offers health insurance to over 71 million low-income Americans, It includes 40% of children and 60% of nursing home residents. more: Medicaid cuts, no tips and no tax on overtime: What Senate Megaville is Trump-backed? The bill also includes new requirements for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as Snap or Food Stamps, which provides food aid to around 42 million Americans, shifting more costs to the state. Lisa Hayes, 67, of Fairfax, Virginia, hugged some of the signs she read to our kids! With others in her Unitarian Universalist Church. “We believe in justice for everyone. We are here today to tell you this bill is not right. It hurts the people who work,” she said. Moral Monday The moral Monday protest began in 2013 by barbers in North Carolina and spread to other states as an effort by religious leaders of all faiths to push back legislative efforts to reduce social safety nets. Rabbi David Sheny of Rockville, Maryland said: The group will then meet in Washington on August 4th and September 8th to protest outside the Supreme Court. Barber said he would be ready for the long term if the bill passes. “The very people they’ve been crazy today will be the power to vote tomorrow,” he said. The post Faith leaders were arrested protesting against the GOP Mega Bill appeared first on US-NEA. Tags and categories: Politics via WordPress https://ift.tt/srPb4va July 01, 2025 at 01:05AM

[mongowheelie]

Pastor shreds Trump's 'big, ugly' megabill: 'We cannot mince words'

Source: Raw Story

Pastor shreds Trump's 'big, ugly' megabill: 'We cannot mince words'

Source: Raw Story

https://share.newsbreak.com/dshh5a2o

[justinspoliticalcorner]

William J. Barber, II and Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at Our Moral Moment:

In the rotunda of the US Capitol yesterday, while praying in front of the monument that honors the founders of the women’s suffrage movement, we were arrested by Capitol police. We have been released from custody; thank you to everyone who has reached out to ask about us. We are OK, but all is not well. We were in Washington, DC, yesterday to launch Moral Mondays with fellow clergy, moral leaders, and scores of people who will be directly impacted by the disastrous budget that Congress has just come back into session to work on. Every illegal attempt to slash federal programs that Elon Musk tried to force through DOGE over the past 100 days is now being proposed as law by the leadership of this Congress. Though the mainstream media has not yet focused on the details of this budget, the facts are clear. Numbers do not lie. You cannot cut $1.5 trillion from the federal budget without slashing Medicaid, Medicare, SNAP, Head Start, Section 8, and other life-saving and life-sustaining programs that millions of Americans rely on and the vast majority of people support. This is why 12 Republican members of Congress have already written to House Speaker Johnson to challenge the proposed cuts to Medicaid. This is not a Republican versus Democrat debate. It's a life or death decision. We are Christian preachers. When we made a vow to preach the good news to all people, in season and out of season, we committed to address life or death issues. This is often intimate and deeply work. We bless babies when they are born, we visit the sick, we welcome strangers to our dinner tables, and we pray with people when they are dying. But life and death work is also public work. As Christian preachers, we are also public theologians. When someone dies from poverty and a lack of healthcare, we cannot lie and say, “God called them home.” We have to tell the truth. They died because we live in a society that has chosen not to care for them.

[...] When our foremothers and forefathers gathered in Southern churches to cry out to God during the freedom movement, they prayed and sang and anchored themselves in faith. But they did not stay in the church house. They marched out into the streets and nonviolently confronted injustice. This is why we could not abdicate the obligations of our vocation when someone asked us to be quiet. We appreciate the Capitol police and have prayed with them and for them as they have dealt with the trauma of being assaulted during the insurrection on January 6th. We thank them for their service and have reassured them that our objection is not to them doing their job. Our insistence on prayer at this moment and in this space is about whether America’s elected representatives will do the job they swore to do when they put their hands on Bibles, the Quran, other sacred texts, and the US Constitution, promising to “establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, provide for the common defense, and secure the blessings of liberty.” We know legislators cannot do this work alone. They are representatives of the people, and the people must help them to do what is right.

We came to the Capitol rotunda to pray for representatives who currently support this immoral budget to see the danger of policy that kills and choose life. We came believing that God can take out a heart of stone and give anyone a heart of flesh. And we came knowing that, whatever their choice, we must nonviolently embody our prayer. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, we must “pray with our feet.” We must trust that, when we align ourselves with the truth at the heart of the universe, our action can unleash power beyond us, setting others free to act and respond in their own way to the moral urgency of this moment. Now is the time for each of us to stand up and speak up. We willingly and nonviolently submitted to arrest rather than cease our prayer not because we wanted to be arrested, but because we know that now is the time to arrest the attention of this nation. Now is not the time to shrink back in fear. Now is the time to courageously join our voices in a general lament for the cruelty we are witnessing in the hope that a new movement of love and justice and truth is already rising to overcome it. No one would be fighting this hard to pass a budget that is so extreme if they were not afraid. The extreme minority of elites promoting this disastrous budget understand the potential power of a coalition of people coming together across race and region, across faiths and family traditions, to build an America that works for all of us. In fact, they may understand better than many of us do how much power we have.

Rev. William Barber is saying what we’re thinking: the MAGA regime is an immoral insult to America and to Godly teachings.

[loudlylovingreview]

Lewis M. Steel: We Should Listen to Rev Barber on White Poverty and Multi-racial Organizing

The latest book by the Poor People’s Campaign co-chair shows how racial division keeps both Black and white communities poor—and lays out a real vision to defeat it. Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II leads a march from Union Station in Washington, D.C. to protest voter suppression laws on August 2, 2021. (Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images). . For progressives to win, we need a…

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William Barber’s ex-wife accuses him of misdirecting funds to pay her alimony

(RNS) — The Rev. William J. Barber II’s ex-wife has asked a judge to look into allegations that the civil rights and anti-poverty leader has been paying her alimony from the finances of his nonprofit. Barber, who has been leading “Moral Mondays at the Capitol” to oppose the federal budget bill and was arrested as part of those demonstrations last month, is president of Repairers of the Breach, a…

[revlyncox]

What Is Hope 2025

Drawing from the Humanist strand in our heritage and in conversation with our interfaith partners for social and economic justice, we find a way forward that is based on vision and values rather than wishful thinking. This sermon was revised and delivered by Rev. Lyn Cox to The Unitarian Society in East Brunswick, April 4, 2025.

In this morning’s reading, we heard about “hope” as a transitive verb from the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. Bishop Barber has been a force in movement building for justice for a long time now. While I’m not a full-time movement builder myself, I have been present for a few of the actions of the Poor People's Campaign, and before that with Repairers of the Breach. I have been inspired by the capacity for hope in all of the organizers and witnesses who come together to declare a new vision of who we can be as a community, as a society, as a country, as a world. 

This week has been full of inspiration as well as heartbreak. I know it is discouraging to see news about the destruction of basic human rights, disappearing people based on their perceived views without due process, a budget that will kill millions of people with its cuts to Medicaid and other programs, and universities capitulating to attacks on equitable education and academic freedom. Yet there are people gathering to lend strength to justice and compassion. Senator Corey Booker, in his record-breaking 25-hour speech, quoted Egyptian pro-democracy activist Wael Ghonim, “The power of the people is greater than the people in power.” Yesterday, at over a thousand different locations, people rallied for democracy. Communities are coming together to look out for each other and to learn their constitutional rights. When I call my legislators, their staff members sound really busy; I think I’m not the only one calling.

There is a lot going on. Sometimes I have the strength and energy to participate in an embodied way, and sometimes I don’t. Each one of us can be a wave that goes in and out with the tide, as long as we keep being an ocean of acceptance, gathering to send energy to each new wave going in, and to lift up with potential energy the waves returning. 

I’d like to speak about hope today. Some of us need to draw from hope to hold out a vision of the world that can yet be. Some of us need hope to sustain the relationships, the communities, and the institutions that are holding people together during these difficult times. Some of us need hope to get through the day, to care for ourselves and the people we love in a personal way. I’ll be drawing from examples of justice making, and I want to be clear that hope is for all of us. You do not have to earn your inherent worth. Your path to creating a world with love and justice at the center might be caregiving, or science, or statistics, or direct service, or mutual aid, or actually physically creating the infrastructure our community needs, or something else. We can respect each other’s paths, and not beat ourselves up for failing to travel every path at the same time. Hope is for everybody. 

When we seek change in coalition, we collaborate with people of many different faiths and no faith, each one speaking out of their own tradition about what moves them to be part of the movement. We each need to reach down to the roots of who we are and what our mission is in this life, because the status quo is not set up for this work, and the energy has to come from somewhere. Dr. Barber speaks eloquently from his tradition, but hearing him does not mean we have to draw from the same roots. Instead, it can inspire us to look to our own and answer in response based on the legacies and communities that energize us as Unitarian Universalists. 

For instance, when Dr. Barber speaks of hope, he might bring up a story from the Biblical book of Zechariah, comforting and energizing his people who were trying to put the pieces of themselves back together after a time of oppression; or from theologians like Walter Brueggemann or Reinhold Niebuhr, who speak about faith and realism. Those stories and essays can help illuminate points in our own philosophy, even if the texts that Dr. Barber references aren’t stories that everyone here draws from. 

Unitarian Universalism is a pluralistic faith. There are among us Pagan UU’s, Jewish UU’s, Muslim UU’s, Buddhist UU’s, Christian UU’s, Atheist UU’s, Humanist UU’s, and just plain Unitarian Universalists. Humanism technically means a worldview that looks for human solutions to human problems, it doesn’t necessarily mean atheist or agnostic. Humanism influences all the other paths I just mentioned, and though there are many Humanists in this congregation, not everyone here identifies primarily in that way. I’ll focus my comments today on the Humanist strand of our heritage and community, with the standard reminder that, when I illuminate one part of our pluralistic faith, I’m making room for lots of other ways that people find meaning here. 

Humanists act based on the philosophy that people are ends in themselves. People should not be used as means to an end. Each human has inherent worth and dignity. Part of our work is to humanize the spaces we go out into, to create spaces where inherent worth becomes more evident. In humanizing the spaces we inhabit, we help dismantle obstacles to human thriving like racism and other forms of oppression. An economic system that exploits the many to increase the wealth of the few is a system that uses people as a means to an end and is unacceptable in Humanist philosophy. 

Therefore, if we declare ourselves to be Humanists, we have some responsibility for helping to make that philosophy a reality, to call attention to the places where human dignity is being disrespected and to increase the momentum of the world of interdependence and justice that we know can be. 

When we look back at our history, and admire the institutions that were founded by our UU predecessors that showed respect and care for people who had been previously regarded by the upper class as disposable, the point is not to rest on our laurels and brag about our ancestors. The point is to remember that respect for the inherent worth of every person was never meant to be exclusively about individual interactions. Yes, certainly, treat individuals you meet with care and respect and curiosity. And also realize that respecting human worth on a large scale requires that our society be built upon justice and compassion. Nobody can be their whole and full selves in a situation of oppression, poverty, war, coercion, or environmental devastation. And so those who declare—as an axiom—the worth of human beings have a responsibility to bring a just and compassionate society closer to fruition. Again, there are many paths for doing that, political activism is only one, and we need to coordinate those paths and see ourselves as part of something larger.

This is where hope becomes difficult. There are among us librarians, scholars, scientists, and careful readers. We are a people of data. We are a people who respect concrete research; we aspire to take an unflinching look at the world as it is. We don’t rely on promises or predictions or fantasies, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have a vision for a different future. Our hymns and readings are filled with hope for a world made whole. It is OK to have an imagination. And, yet, if we unveil the depth of suffering and injustice at work in the world as it currently is, and compare the data with that vision, we can easily become discouraged. True hope—the hope of staying the course, the hope of refusing to let dehumanization win even when we know what we are up against, active hope—is not easy. 

So let’s be sure we’re framing hope consistently. Hope is not wishful thinking. Hope is not pretending things are OK. Hope is not glossing over the grief and pain around us and within us. Quite the opposite. Hope is strengthened when we can bear witness to suffering, to be in companionship with one another in the midst of pain and setbacks, and to keep doing the right thing anyway. Hope is staying committed to our values and purpose, acting on those values even when we cannot be assured that our vision will prevail in the short term. Dr. Cornel West puts it this way:

This hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism adopts the role of the spectator who surveys the evidence in order to infer that things are going to get better. Yet we know that the evidence does not look good. The dominant tendencies of our day are unregulated global capitalism, racial balkanization, social breakdown, and individual depression. Hope enacts the stance of the participant who actively struggles against the evidence in order to change the deadly tides of wealth inequality, group xenophobia, and personal despair. Only a new wave of vision, courage, and hope can keep us sane-and preserve the decency and dignity requisite to revitalize our organizational energy for the work to be done. To live is to wrestle with despair yet never to allow despair to have the last word.

Dr. West and others refer to being “prisoners of hope,” people who can do no other except the next, right thing in pursuit of justice. He is speaking of a commitment to act toward justice, to be held by ancestors and promises and community. It’s partially a Biblical reference, and even if we do not share the same relationship with that source, I hope we can identify with the strength of a commitment to values held in our community yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It’s a hope based in action, not speculation. 

If we do not have assurances, and we don’t have illusions, our hope has to come from somewhere else. And one of the places it comes from is our interdependence. We get that hope from each other, and from the world of relationships we inhabit. That’s not as simple as trading platitudes with one another. It means caring for one another and the earth as best we can. In the reading we heard earlier from Dr. Barber, the practice of community care both spread hope among the people and energized the sharers of hope. When we create practices and spaces of humanization, places where those who are despised by the dominant society are treated as worthy and capable agents in their own lives; when we learn and perpetuate practices of respect and care, we are creating pocket universes that can grow into aspects of the Beloved Community. 

Our Pastoral Care Associates create hope by being present, by being peer listeners. Our Greeters and Chat Chaplains create hope in the way they hold us in community and hospitality. Our Tech Team creates hope in the unbelievable feats of science and engineering that allow us to weave our community together across time and space. Our Climate Justice Revival participants create hope in holding out a different way to be in relationship with each other and the planet. Our Social Justice Committee creates hope in their practices of love, support, and empowerment. Our Open Minds Book Group creates hope by reminding us that we can humanize this space as we un-learn and dismantle the white supremacy culture we’re swimming in. Members of our Board of Trustees create hope by doing the unglamorous work, day in and day out, of creating and sustaining the container of this community, a place where we can gather in comfort, challenge, and resilience. Our Religious Education volunteers create hope by conveying this vision and these values to a new generation. All of this is part of the work of humanizing, of opening up new pocket universes that connect to the world that is possible. All of these aspects of hope link us together as part of something larger than our individual selves, larger than this community, larger than Unitarian Universalism.

There are many paths in the practice of hope. If your hope-making activity is caregiving, teaching, caring for institutions like this congregation, or simply surviving when the world tells you your survival is inconsequential, your hope-making is vital. And. If you have energy for social change, there are plenty of hope-making opportunities there. Activities aimed at social change—direct action, public witness, electoral organizing, policy work, union organizing, and other forms of social justice—encompass some of the practices for hope. 

We may not achieve our goals. Short term success would be nice, but that’s not the deepest well from which we can draw hope. We increase the strength of our hope by showing up for each other, in whatever way is possible for us in our own time and place. Taking action for change creates hope because it is demonstrating to the other people involved that we are not alone. All of the ways we humanize the spaces we inhabit are practices of creating hope. We might not win. But we might. And, even if we don’t achieve our legislative goals in the short term, we’ll be building a movement for the long term. Dr. Barber reminds us:

Dr. King said we are called to be thermostats that change the temperature, not thermometers that merely measure the temperature. Gandhi said first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win. And the truth is, every movement that has ever changed America began when electoral politics, the majority, and even the law were antagonistic. The abolition movement didn’t have the majority with it, or the politics, when it bagan. The women’s suffrage movement didn’t have the majority when it bagan. The fight against legalized lynching didn’t have it. The fight for Social Security the battle to end segregation and Jim Crow, the campaign in Birmingham, the Greensboro sit-ins, Selma, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, none of these efforts was popular. None of these efforts had the Gallup poll with them. None of these efforts had political sway with them. But what changes the country and what changes the world is not just electoral politics, but moral movements that change the atmosphere in which electoral politics have to exist. 

(Revive Us Again, p. 77)

I don’t know what will happen to this country in the short term. I do know that my own resources for hope are increased when I can stay in touch with the network of relationships that sustain me, keep me rooted in my values, and help put my hope in context with the inspiration of the past and the future people and planet to whom I am responsible. I know that when I practice gratitude for communities like this one, where we are surrounded by people practicing hope-making activities, it’s a little easier to do the next, right thing. I know that I am not alone in holding a vision of a world of love and justice, a world where the inherent worth of people and our relationship with the planet are both evident in the fabric of society. Humanizing the spaces we inhabit is a hope-making activity. If we are Humanists, let us be Humanists for hope.

[doc8692]

Good morning and Happy Monday Trustee Aide Family,

I just got Roland Martin’s below message:  

On Tuesday, March 4th, we are going to present THE STATE OF OUR UNION. We will go live at 7pm Eastern (which is 6pm Central) and will go to midnight or 1am. We will break this up into 30-minute blocks. We will have Congressional Black Caucus members, civil rights activists, voting rights advocates, labor leaders, business leaders, grassroots activists and millennials.  We will NOT carry Donald Trump’s speech. Instead, when Trump walks to the mic, we will go live to New Haven, Connecticut, where Rev. William J. Barber II will deliver OUR speech. My team will show clips of the twice-impeached, criminally convicted felon-in-chief, and we’l discuss these matters after Barber is done. Spread the word! TO KEEP TRUMP’S RATINGS LOW, DO NOT WATCH ANY NEWS NETWORKS.  I would love to have 100,000+ watching us LIVE at Youtube.com/RolandSMartin or on the Black Star Network (BSN) app.  Again, please help spread the word by sharing this with your network (family, friends, church, neighbors, co-workers, classmates, etc.).

Thank you.”

[fadingsunsjvj]

Rev. Dr. William Barber II Democrats must decide if they support the working poor & middle class.

https://open.substack.com/pub/egberto/p/rev-dr-william-barber-ii-democrats?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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Bishop William Barber II: America’s Shift To ‘Conservative Values’ Masks Hate, Neglects The Poor

Source: Black Enterprise

Bishop William Barber II: America’s Shift To ‘Conservative Values’ Masks Hate, Neglects The Poor

Source: Black Enterprise