Citing ‘national sickness,’ Barber issues call to action in MLK Day message to Morristown – Morristown Green

Enough lip service to Martin Luther King.

America faces a crisis of democracy, and must follow the slain Civil Rights leaders example of nonviolent action for a moral re-set, the Rev. William J. Barber II said Monday in a virtual MLK Day address to Morristown.

Barber, who in 2018 helped re-launch the Poor Peoples Campaign that King promoted a half century earlier, called for a mass, poor peoples, low-wage workers, moral march on Washington on June 18, 2022, to forge a movement addressing our national sickness.

Americas memory of Jim Crow has been distorted by a political culture that pays lip service to Dr. King while forgetting his vision of a democracy that works for all Americans, Barber said.

He was keynote speaker for Morristowns Martin Luther King Observance Committee, which has marked Kings birthday for 52 years. The program went virtual for the second straight year because of the pandemic.

There were video messages from ministers Jerry Carter of Calvary Baptist Church, Sarah Green from the Presbyterian Church in Morristown, and David Hollowell, who emceed.

A group called Sounds of Zamar sang anthems, MLK scholarship winners pledged to do good for the world, and recorded panels discussed todays Toxic Environment of Hate, culture wars, and disparities wrought by COVID-19.

Noting that Juneteenth, a celebration of the end of slavery, now is a Morris County holiday, Morris County Commissioner John Krickus, a Republican, urged viewers to heed Kings call to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.

Video: The Rev. Barbers talk starts around the 31:00 mark:

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, called out the GOP for sowing division nationwide.

The 2020 presidential election, a low point in American history, showed how some would go to any means to stop democracy in its tracks in a naked quest for power, said Morial, former mayor of New Orleans.

Since the Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6, 2021, some 40 states have introduced laws to hinder voting, sanction racial gerrymander, and undercut the Voting Rights Act that King fought for in 1965, he said.

Standing up for the right to vote, and insisting our leaders do the same, is how to honor Kings legacy, Morial said.

Barber attributed this period of national sickness to wickedness in high places.

Back in the 1960s, Martin Luther King observed how the Southern aristocracy pitted poor whites against poor Blacks to thwart democratic coalitions. Today, Jim Crow segregation tactics have evolved into Jim Crow, Esquire, Barber said.

The data analysis and legal maneuvers are more sophisticated than Jim Crow. If they werent, you would not have voter suppression laws being passed in Texas, where the majority of people are people of color, he said.

Such measures, enacted in at least 19 states so far, along with government policies favoring corporations and military spending over social programs, and an ever-widening chasm between haves and have-nots, glaringly exposed by COVID-19, ultimately threaten everyone, Barber said.

The Civil Rights movement, he pointed out, was a coalition of Black and white, Christian and Jew, young and old, gay and straight.

The Beloved Community that Dr. King preached and organized toward wasnt just an America where Black, white and brown could sit down in a restaurant together.

It was the hope of a political system where the Black, white, brown, Asian, and native masses could vote together for leaders who served the common good.

We need to understand this today. Somethings going on here other than just the attack on voting rights being a Black issue, said Barber.

The North Carolina pastor and author is a visiting professor at the Union Theological Seminary. He holds a doctorate from Drew University in Madison, and in 2017 was consecrated as Bishop of Repairers of the Breach, a national network of faith-based justice organizations.

He delivered the homily at the inaugural prayer service for President Biden and Vice President Harris, and has spoken at the Vatican.

Barber questioned how the United States, alone among the planets 20 wealthiest nations, refuses to offer universal health care. And why corporations swiftly received more than $4 trillion in COVID aid, while Congress has yet to pass the $1.9 trillion Build Back Better bill.

Billionaires have thrived during the pandemic, he said, while 140 million citizens live under or near the poverty line, and 61 percent of Americans cannot afford a $1,000 emergency.

Low-wage workers deemed essential early in the pandemic were treated as expendable, dying in disproportionate numbers, he said.

Opposing living wages and voting rights laws, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce supports Sen. Mitch McConnell, his fellow Republicans and moderate Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who normalize the subversion of democracy by insinuating that voting rights are a special interest of minorities, Barber said.

This week the Senate is poised to debate two voting rights measures favored by Democrats.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the late Georgia congressman, would reverse a 2013 Supreme Court ruling that weakened the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965.

A more sweeping bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, would make Election Day a holiday, prohibit partisan redrawing (gerrymandering) of voting districts, limit dark money spending on campaigns, and protect alternatives to in-person voting, among other things.

Citing states rights and concerns about voter fraud, Republicans are expected to block the measures by filibustering.

Barber said the GOP mantra of election integrity predates President Trumps Big Lie about a stolen election; he pegs it to President Obamas victories. So many Black, brown and white votersparticularly in the Southvoted for Obama, all of a sudden somebody said something must be wrong. Somebody must be cheating.

Voter roll purges, overly restrictive voter I.D. requirements, gerrymandering and other state-level actions disenfranchise Blacks and also diminish multi-ethnic voting coalitions, Barber said.

Meanwhile, millions of poor people can buy unleaded gasbut not unleaded water, Barber continued. The environment is devastated, education is underfunded, and political agendas are driven by the false, distorted morality of religious nationalism, coupled with white supremacy.

These challenges are enormous, Barber acknowledged. Yet nothing could be more tragic than turning back now, in his view.

Silence is not an option. Standing down is not an option. It wasnt an option for Martin, cant be an option for us.

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Citing 'national sickness,' Barber issues call to action in MLK Day message to Morristown - Morristown Green