An Urgent Call for a Black Movement: The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber Implores ‘the Rejected’ to Revive Love, Justice

An Urgent Call for a Movement The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber Implores ‘the Rejected’ to Revive Love, Justice

BY TAMEKA BRADLEY HOBBS, PH.D.

There is a long tradition within the Black Christian church of righteous truth telling on the matters of freedom, liberty, and racial injustice in the United States. From the evangelical force of David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, published in 1829, indicting white Christians for their participation in chattel slavery, to the Rev. Henry McNeal Turner and his fiery invectives calling out the injustices heaped upon freed people as they sought to assert their newly-achieved rights as citizens in the period of Reconstruction. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is perhaps the most preeminent among the list of Black religious-leaders-turned-activists in the nation’s history.

Today, the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber holds that mantel. One writer referred to him as the nation’s spiritual counterbalance to the Age of Donald Trump. Rev. Barber is best known as the president of the North Carolina National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim with its Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General Assembly in 2013. A graduate of North Carolina Central University, a historically black university, Rev. Barber is also president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, visiting professor at Union Theological Seminary, and pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church, Disciples of Christ in Goldsboro, North Carolina.

Perhaps most notably, Barber has also worked to resurrect Rev. King’s Poor People’s Campaign more than 50 years after the leader’s tragic assassination, offering a moral critique of local, state, and federal policy, and promoting leadership

Rev. Dr. William J. Barber

among marginalized folks in U.S. society and nonviolent confrontation of these systems in the service of justice. Barber is the most preeminent activisttheologian since Rev. King.

This book, We Are Called to be a Movement, is the text of the sermon Rev. Barber delivered at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., on June 3, 2018, on the cusp of the relaunch of the Poor People’s Campaign. In it, Barber takes inspiration from Psalm 118 and the proverb that “the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.” He pairs that with the story of Isaiah’s prophecy to the poor in Nazareth from Luke 4. Based on these biblical texts, Barber seeks, as Rev. King once did, to refocus the attention of this wealthy nation on the needs of the most vulnerable in the country, the poor. “The politics of rejection and policy violence against the poor are still far too real,” Barber reminds us in his book. He references a litany of lack among the American people — from health care, affordable housing, to a living wage — to bolster his call of a moral mandate to improve the quality of life of those most on the margins in our society.

Likewise, Rev. Barber reminds us of the leadership that comes from the cornerstones referenced in Psalm 118. “The rejected,” he implores, “must lead the revival for love and justice.” This is more than just an idea for Barber, as his group, Repairers of the Breach, in much the same way as the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, works in communities to cultivate and train leaders within the grassroots to give voice to their own needs and desires. The movement is multiracial, nationwide, and tackles a major frontier that represents the greatest fundamental promise of the United States: the opportunity for all to thrive. In this way, We Are Called to Be a Movement serves as an indictment of the systems that foster continued economic exclusion and racial inequities, and a clarion call for the redemption of America’s soul. It builds upon the tradition of Black Liberation Theology, and the belief of God’s concern for the poor and marginalized. In his work and message, Rev. Barber offers a powerful and necessary vision for a nation where all Americans can share in opportunities to improve their lives.

Tameka Bradley Hobbs, Ph.D. is associate provost for Academic Affairs at Florida Memorial University and is the founding director of the FMU Social Justice Institute. She is the author of the award-winning book, Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida.

FB: facebook.com/drtamekahobbs IG: dr.tamekahobbs Twitter: tamekahobbs

MEDIA GROUP LLC

“The Home of Black Intellectual Capital and Providers of News and Information to South Florida’s Black Affluencers and Influencers!”

PUBLISHERS OF LEGACY MIAMI, LEGACY SOUTH FLORIDA AND MIA MAGAZINES

CREATORS OF DIGITAL PRODUCTS