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The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II and the Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis visited with individuals and families at the US/Mexico Border as a part of The Poor People's Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival on October 23, 2017.
We Need A Moral Movement
In our travels to more than 32 states, we bore personal witness to the extreme poverty and systemic inequality that plague the world’s wealthiest democracy.
Dec 29, 2017
This was a landmark year for building a national moral movement in the United States, both in terms of the challenges we faced and the victories we achieved.
In our travels to more than 32 states, we bore personal witness to the extreme poverty and systemic inequality that plague the world's wealthiest democracy.
At the US/Mexico border, I waded into the Rio Grande with Maria, a grandmother who has been separated from her husband and children by US policy. We were up to our knees in water, but Maria's tears re-baptized me as she held the children she bore and raised for five precious minutes in the middle of a river.
I remembered the words of James Baldwin: "we made the world we are living in and only we can make it again."
Preaching at Riverside Church in April on the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King's sermon against the Vietnam War, I reflected on the continued resonance of his prophetic plea for a "revolution of values" in the United States, and celebrated the resurgence of "a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life" that sanctifies moral resistance and refuses to be silent anymore.
From Anchorage to Alabama -- from Detroit to Skid Row -- we've witnessed the courage of directly impacted people, who are determined to become the nation we've not yet been. We walked side by side with women who lost their children for lack of healthcare and still demand access for everyone else, men who lost their jobs to a profit-mad economy and still defend the God-given right to meaningful work, and children who lost their innocence to gun violence and still dream of a society that defends the public good.
It was the courage and conviction of these moral leaders that led Repairers, the Kairos Center at Union Theological Seminary and hundreds of other organizations and individuals to launch on December 4 of this year the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
Using many of the same strategies pioneered in our Moral Mondays movement, the Campaign seeks to catalyze similar state-based moral movements across the nation. Its overarching aim is to call on clergy, lay people and all people of conscience to join together to put a human face on poverty in this country, reawaken America to its higher moral purpose and build steadfast unity in defense of our most cherished Constitutional and moral traditions.
For 2018, along with Repairers' ongoing education and training, conscious cultural engagement, moral public policy research, and state-based organizing programs, we hope you will join us and the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival in 40 consecutive days of prophetic direct action in 25 states and the District of Columbia from Mothers' Day to the Summer Solstice, a journey from birth to light.
You already stand with us in the Breach that has opened in this country between nation and citizen, government and governed, institutionalized religion and people of faith. Will you stay with us until we Repair the damage done?
Please consider joining us for a special Gathering Watch Night Service this New Year's Eve, which we are hosting in partnership with the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
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Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, is a Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He serves as President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival, Bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, and has been Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Goldsboro, NC, for the past 29 years.
This was a landmark year for building a national moral movement in the United States, both in terms of the challenges we faced and the victories we achieved.
In our travels to more than 32 states, we bore personal witness to the extreme poverty and systemic inequality that plague the world's wealthiest democracy.
At the US/Mexico border, I waded into the Rio Grande with Maria, a grandmother who has been separated from her husband and children by US policy. We were up to our knees in water, but Maria's tears re-baptized me as she held the children she bore and raised for five precious minutes in the middle of a river.
I remembered the words of James Baldwin: "we made the world we are living in and only we can make it again."
Preaching at Riverside Church in April on the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King's sermon against the Vietnam War, I reflected on the continued resonance of his prophetic plea for a "revolution of values" in the United States, and celebrated the resurgence of "a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life" that sanctifies moral resistance and refuses to be silent anymore.
From Anchorage to Alabama -- from Detroit to Skid Row -- we've witnessed the courage of directly impacted people, who are determined to become the nation we've not yet been. We walked side by side with women who lost their children for lack of healthcare and still demand access for everyone else, men who lost their jobs to a profit-mad economy and still defend the God-given right to meaningful work, and children who lost their innocence to gun violence and still dream of a society that defends the public good.
It was the courage and conviction of these moral leaders that led Repairers, the Kairos Center at Union Theological Seminary and hundreds of other organizations and individuals to launch on December 4 of this year the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
Using many of the same strategies pioneered in our Moral Mondays movement, the Campaign seeks to catalyze similar state-based moral movements across the nation. Its overarching aim is to call on clergy, lay people and all people of conscience to join together to put a human face on poverty in this country, reawaken America to its higher moral purpose and build steadfast unity in defense of our most cherished Constitutional and moral traditions.
For 2018, along with Repairers' ongoing education and training, conscious cultural engagement, moral public policy research, and state-based organizing programs, we hope you will join us and the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival in 40 consecutive days of prophetic direct action in 25 states and the District of Columbia from Mothers' Day to the Summer Solstice, a journey from birth to light.
You already stand with us in the Breach that has opened in this country between nation and citizen, government and governed, institutionalized religion and people of faith. Will you stay with us until we Repair the damage done?
Please consider joining us for a special Gathering Watch Night Service this New Year's Eve, which we are hosting in partnership with the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, is a Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He serves as President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival, Bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, and has been Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Goldsboro, NC, for the past 29 years.
This was a landmark year for building a national moral movement in the United States, both in terms of the challenges we faced and the victories we achieved.
In our travels to more than 32 states, we bore personal witness to the extreme poverty and systemic inequality that plague the world's wealthiest democracy.
At the US/Mexico border, I waded into the Rio Grande with Maria, a grandmother who has been separated from her husband and children by US policy. We were up to our knees in water, but Maria's tears re-baptized me as she held the children she bore and raised for five precious minutes in the middle of a river.
I remembered the words of James Baldwin: "we made the world we are living in and only we can make it again."
Preaching at Riverside Church in April on the 50th Anniversary of Dr. King's sermon against the Vietnam War, I reflected on the continued resonance of his prophetic plea for a "revolution of values" in the United States, and celebrated the resurgence of "a new and unsettling force in our complacent national life" that sanctifies moral resistance and refuses to be silent anymore.
From Anchorage to Alabama -- from Detroit to Skid Row -- we've witnessed the courage of directly impacted people, who are determined to become the nation we've not yet been. We walked side by side with women who lost their children for lack of healthcare and still demand access for everyone else, men who lost their jobs to a profit-mad economy and still defend the God-given right to meaningful work, and children who lost their innocence to gun violence and still dream of a society that defends the public good.
It was the courage and conviction of these moral leaders that led Repairers, the Kairos Center at Union Theological Seminary and hundreds of other organizations and individuals to launch on December 4 of this year the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
Using many of the same strategies pioneered in our Moral Mondays movement, the Campaign seeks to catalyze similar state-based moral movements across the nation. Its overarching aim is to call on clergy, lay people and all people of conscience to join together to put a human face on poverty in this country, reawaken America to its higher moral purpose and build steadfast unity in defense of our most cherished Constitutional and moral traditions.
For 2018, along with Repairers' ongoing education and training, conscious cultural engagement, moral public policy research, and state-based organizing programs, we hope you will join us and the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival in 40 consecutive days of prophetic direct action in 25 states and the District of Columbia from Mothers' Day to the Summer Solstice, a journey from birth to light.
You already stand with us in the Breach that has opened in this country between nation and citizen, government and governed, institutionalized religion and people of faith. Will you stay with us until we Repair the damage done?
Please consider joining us for a special Gathering Watch Night Service this New Year's Eve, which we are hosting in partnership with the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival.
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