Rev. William Barber

'We' Is the Most Important Word in the Social Justice Vocabulary

In  his "state of the state" address at the NC NAACP convention, Rev. Barber reminded the audience that they were engaged in a new civil rights movement, not just a moment. "If you're concerned about justice -- white, black, young or old, rich or poor, Jew, gentile, or Christian -- come on in a help us get this work done." Watch coverage from Channel 3 in Wilmington.

" 'We' is the most important word in the Justice vocabulary. The issue is not what we can't do, but what we CAN do when we stand together. With an upsurge in racial/hate crimes, criminalization of young black males, insensitivity to the poor, educational genocide, and the moral/economic cost of a war, we must stand together now like never before."

To peruse additional coverage of the NAACP Convention in Wilmington, click.

The Theology of Hope: Why I Had to Apologize to My 'Uneducated' Grandmother

Excerpts from a speech given to the 21st MLK Anniversary Banquet, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Rocky Mount, NC, August 2007:

When I went to seminary, I learned from James Cone, Paul Tilllich, Jurgen Moltmann, that hope was a theological category, and all Christians are commanded to have hope. Hope is not an option for the Christian. If  you stop having hope, then stop calling yourself a Christian.

But long before I went to seminary, my grandmamma taught me about hope before I realized what she was doing. On Saturday mornings, she would gather herself, no matter how she felt, and put on an old three-pocket apron – some of ya’ll know what I’m talking about – tied in the back with plenty of safety pins in it. In one pocket she put some anointed oil. And another pocket she put a little money. And another pocket she put some cleaning rags.

And I’d ask my grandmamma, where you going, grandma mimi? And she’d say, child, I’m going to hope somebody. And I’m on the move.

Well, I had been to school. I had my little ninth grade education. And I thought my grandmamma meant “help,” but because she’d only had a fourth grade education, she mispronounced help as hope.

But then I went to seminary. I found out that hope is a theological construct. And there’s a connection between helping folks and giving them hope.

When you stand for justice and help folks, you’re at the same time, giving them hope.

That’s why because Jesus helped us at Calvary, the writer said my hope is built when the Lord helped us.

I had to go back home and apologize to my grandmamma, because of what I thought was bad English. I understand that while it might have been wrong grammatically, it was right theologically.

My grandmamma was hoping somebody. So in honor of my grandmamma, let me rephrase one of the songs of the movement, “If I can hope somebody, as I pass along, my living shall not be in vain.”

What Would Martin Luther King Be Doing If He Were Alive Today?

Excerpts from a speech given to the 21st MLK Anniversary Banquet, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Rocky Mount, NC, August 2007:

Sometimes people ask me, “Where would Martin King be on the issues now?” And I answer like this. Isaiah the prophet spoke of justice by the spirit eight centuries BC. Eight hundred years later, when the same spirit was upon Jesus, he spoke the same thing that Isaiah had spoken 800 years earlier.

If Martin Luther King were alive, you don’t have to wonder he’d be doing the same thing now that he was doing then.

And so, if we need anything today to honor Martin Luther King, we need a movement, not just a monument.

Martin Luther King not only challenged the system, he challenged us. He challenged narcissistic hopelessness that can get a hold of us sometimes, the kind of hopelessness where people start trading dreams for death, and brains for bullets, and futures for fighting.

He challenged those who don’t vote, even though somebody died for you to have the right to vote.

He challenged those who get into positions, and then forgot how they got into those positions.

That’s what Martin dreamed about. He dreamed about a movement.

Martin wanted this nation to be true to what it said on paper. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.

We need a movement.

That’s why we put together this 14-point agenda, with the help of all of you and 78 organizations came together. Five thousand people marched on Raleigh and we going to be back next year with hopefully 10,000 people, and we’re going to keep coming, and coming and coming, until the agenda is enacted.

We need a movement.

Martin Luther King rooted his determination in a grand hope. Though he was clear about injustice, he was not delusional. He knew that we are saved by hope, and he had like all of us these moments when despair would set in. But the spirit would revive his soul again.

If you listen to his speeches he would say, “sometimes I feel discouraged. It seems like all my works are in vain. But then the holy spirit comes, and revives my soul again."

Oh, Martin had hope. I’ve often considered the marvelous message Martin left with us on his final mission to Memphis. In the face of incredible odds and unrealized dreams, in an America that was full of rage and racism, simply because black people decided they would not take any longer the humiliation and degradation of segregation and second class citizenship. In the face of this, Martin Luther King on his final night spoke to us of a vision, from the mountaintop.

Call it mystic, call it mysterious, call it dramatic. Martin, like Moses thousands of years before him, caught a glimpse of the promised land. Somehow his words that night bore the truth that he would not make it. He knew that America was sick unto death with a virus that would seek out and destroy anyone who would not allow her to perpetrate the myth of the land of the free while millions of her black citizens remained unfree.

Whether he knew the next day, the next week, or the next year would be his last living moment with us, that wasn’t important. But what is important is what we hear in his message from the mountaintop.

Martin’s mountain was not the mountain of escapism. Martin did not see the promised land from the heights of comfort and convenience. Martin was not in some hideway Camp David while the world was going to hell in a hand-basket. No, he was in the midst of the struggle. His aides were mad at him. They thought it was too risky for him to be in Memphis. The FBI was after him. There were a certain number of white folk who couldn’t stand him. They said he was always sticking his nose in places it didn’t belong. And then there were some scared Negroes who didn’t like him. Yet Martin was in Memphis because something had gotten a hold of him, that said when God’s children are in trouble, one cannot ask the question, “What will happen to me if I help them?” But one has to ask the question, “What will happen to them if I don’t help them?”

And he said that Martin was not on the mountain of comfort and convenience, he was on the mountain of controversy. He was fighting for freedom, fighting for justice, fighting for righteousness. There are those who want to see Martin as merely a good dreamer and a good speaker, but that’s dangerous, I tell you.

Dr. C. A. Lincoln said, “Don’t put that on Martin.” In his book, “Race, Religion and the Continuing American Dilemma,” he said we cannot allow America to mythologize Martin Luther King. You don’t really have to deal with a myth. You don’t have to come to terms with a myth.

But Martin wasn’t a myth, he was a man, flesh and blood, hurt and be hurt, he bled like we bleed. But God got a hold of him. And God gave him the kind of power to say to America, “Put your money where your Constitution is, put your money where your mouth is.” And he stood flat-footed, and spoke the truth like the prophets of old.

Somebody said he got caught up in what the Greeks call kairos, which is God’s time, what the Germans call the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times, what my grandmamma called the holy ghost. When it gets a hold of you, you’ll do what you thought you couldn’t do.

Yes, Lord, he had hope, the kind of hope that the slaves had when they sang, “Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. Nobody but my Jesus.” But then they would get a little hallelujah in there, and then they would say, glory, glory, hallelujah.

And so Martin’s message said something to us. I read his whole speech in preparing for this speech, and I found 13 words in that last speech that we ought to hear tonight, and those words were simply this: Martin said, “When I look at everything that’s going on, and I see all that’s happening around us,” Martin said that last night in Memphis, “nothing would be more tragic than for us to stop at this point."

And I declare we need to hear that in 2007.

I believe we’re going to need to hear it in 2008.

“Nothing would be more tragic than for us to stop at this point."

Because Martin knew that righteousness is a marathon, and righteousness demands a movement.

Martin knew that we must keep on keeping on. He said he might not get there with you, but we as a people will get there.

That’s hope, isn’t it?

There he was in Memphis, a PhD helping garbage workers, everyday people, believing they could make a change.

That’s hope isn’t it?

He said, “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

“I’m not fearing any man.”

That’s hope, isn’t it?

...Every time Martin marched, he was hoping somebody. And we still need hope.

Hope that though right is bruised, it will win every time.

We still need hope.

Weeping endureth through the night, but joy sure comes in the morning.

We still need hope. It’s good, more powerful than evil.

All over North Carolina, somebody is looking for hope.

If I can hope somebody, as I pass along, then my living shall not be in vain.

Related:

• The Theology of Hope: Why I Had to Apologize to My 'Uneducated' Grandmother

To Truly Honor Martin Luther King, We Must Live Like Him

Excerpts from a speech given to the 21st MLK Anniversary Banquet, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Rocky Mount, NC, August 2007:

Hear me now. Hear me now very well. Martin Luther King was not a diversity specialist. Don’t make Martin Luther King that small. Don’t make him the one who tells people to hold hands and sing, “We are the world,” and then go back to living like hell. Don’t make him that small.

Those who can speak in glowing terms about unity without addressing the divisions of poverty and racism – don’t make Martin that small.

He was not just a good speaker. It’s almost vulgar to say he was just a good speaker. He was a prophet speaking the word of God. He was not just a dreamer, a daydreamer. He had a prophetic dream. I heard his daughter Bernice say -- we talked after her speech, and she said -- “Don’t reduce my father to these small things.”

If we want to remember him, then we got to live like him.

If we really want to remember him, then we must remember that the greatest form of flattery is imitation. We need to emulate the spirit of Martin King.

We need to emulate him, not with just a monument, but with a movement.

Martin Luther King Saw Life 'Through Heaven's Eyes'

Excerpts from a speech given to the 21st MLK Anniversary Banquet, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Rocky Mount, NC, August 2007:

My daughter, who was the valedictorian of her class at Bennett College, stood in the same pulpit where Martin spoke when he came to Greensboro. And she said, reflecting upon his life, she reminded us there was a movie, “the Prince of Egypt,” in which there was a song entitled, “Through Heaven’s Eyes.” And she said, that is how Martin Luther King lived, he saw life through heaven’s eyes.

The spirit of God called him to see what others refused to see, and to believe that something could be done.

No wonder in his speech, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, as he looked through heaven’s eyes, he said, “I accept this award today with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind. I refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history.”

No wonder he said, “I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘is-ness’ of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ought-ness that forever confronts him.”

And he said that day, “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”

No wonder he said, because he looked at us through heaven’s eyes, that “I  believe that wounded justice, lying prostrate on the blood-flowing streets of our nations, can be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men.”

No wonder he said, “I still believe that one day mankind will bow before the altars of God and be crowned triumphant over war and bloodshed, and nonviolent redemptive goodwill will proclaim the rule of the land.”

"And the lion and the lamb shall lie down together and every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and none shall be afraid."

No wonder he said, looking through heaven’s eyes, in spite of all the problems, “I still believe that we shall overcome.”

He saw life through heaven’s eyes.

Why Did We Need A Martin Luther King in the First Place?

Excerpts from a speech given to the 21st MLK Anniversary Banquet, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Rocky Mount, NC, August 2007:

The Bible says in Ezekiel Chapter One,  “And they shall know there hath been a prophet among you.”

I just want to talk for a moment about why did we need a Martin Luther King in the first place?

1619 – the first slaves were brought to the United States based on:

• a warped theology, that said some people were not people, but were created by God to be slaves to others,

• a sick science that said you could determine intelligence and capacity by skin color, and

• a misguided economic theory that justified enslavement based on the basis of Darwinistic economics and utilitarian principles that the means justify the end.

Why did we need a Martin Luther King in the first place?

Because Crispus Attucks was a black man, the first to die in the revolutionary war, in the Boston Massacre, in 1770. But when the Constitution he fought for was written, African Americans were fractionalized, and rendered legally as slaves who were only three-fifths of a person. 

And then in the 1860s, there was the civil war, and at its end there was some progress. But then in 1880, Rutherford B. Hayes cut a deal. He wanted to be president, but he didn’t win the popular vote in 1880, so he said to the Southern states, give me your electoral votes, and I’ll give you back the South.

This allowed one hundred years of Jim Crow, which sought to undo the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th amendments of the Constitution. This set in motion the terrorist race riots, like the one right here in North Carolina in 1898, which took power from progressive whites and blacks, stole black control of the closest port to Africa, killed and threw people in the Neuse River, and put this state back in the hands of white supremacists. And it took us 90 years to get another African American elected to the United States Congress after George White was kicked out of Congress.

Why did we need a Martin Luther King in the first place?

Because African Americans were forced to give first class blood for second class citizenship. In 1896, Plessy Vs. Ferguson said “separate was equal” and only one justice dissented.

Why did we need a Martin Luther King in the first place?

In 1955, Emmett Till was killed and mutilated for allegedly whistling at a white woman.

Schools like UNC were built by slaves, but the sons and daughter of former slaves were not allowed to go there.

My own father had two masters degrees but couldn’t vote in the South. When I was born August 30, 1963, both my parents were highly educated, but could only use their skills in an all-black setting.

I could go on, but the point is, it was at the backdrop of this history that God said, “Enough.” And raised up a prophet.

Through the courageous act of Rosa Parks, refusing to move to the back of the bus, Martin was placed on the scene. Martin was not the movement, but he was the spokesman and the galvanizer of the movement. He was snatched out of his plans into God’s plans.

He was a prophet sent first to change the most powerful nation in the world without ever firing a shot. And then to speak to the world – his was a fight for full humanity, his was a fight for justice and love.

Martin Luther King challenged what I call man’s trinitarian Inhumanity to man…racism, poverty and war. He was the spokesman and the galvanizer of the movement. When Lyndon Baines Johnson told him there was no way we could get a voting rights act – “we’ve already gotten enough for Negroes” – Martin galvanized the movement. He went to Selma and he used creative teaching to get it and to demand that America keep the promises she had made in the 14^th and 15^th amendments.

One year before his death, he spoke out against the Vietnam War. Martin refused to believe the lies of extreme militarism and empire propaganda. He would not engage in pornographic patriotism that just goes along with whatever somebody else says.

The last night he was with us, he was fighting for rights and fair wages for garbage workers – what a picture of servant leadership. And he was headed to the poor people’s march, bringing together poor whites and blacks and Hispanics and Native Americans.

But we must understand that is also why he was killed, because his vision was counter to the vision of injustice.

His vision exposed what others wanted to hide. He was not a perfect man, but his vision had been perfected by God, and he fought to have that vision become a reality.

He dared to care, and he loved the nation, but his love was the kind of love that critiques. His love was the kind of love that dares to ask questions. His love was the kind of love that dared to speak out against an unjust war. His love was the kind of love that dared to believe, that dared to see the world differently, that dared to speak in the name of God, on the side of justice.

The Language of Self-Liberation

Address by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, President of NC NAACP to the Winston Salem State NAACP College Chapter Image Awards, April 2007

During slavery the masters would throw all sorts of abusive words at the slaves to try to damage their self-esteem. Slave preachers would in turn use the power of words to lift up the hopes and esteem of the toilers, reminding them of their god image. This was dangerous because to speak of life and liberation was punishable by death. Yet from Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman to Mary McLeod Bethune, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X, despite death threats and attempts to shut them up, they all used words to speak truth and liberation.