I’ve been waiting for video of this speech to be posted. You already know how I feel about Moral Monday and how it is moving through and gaining strength in the south. It’s great to be able to share a coming together of the progressive fighters in Wisconsin with Moral Monday from North Carolina.
Yara Allen, from the NC NAACP and a Moral Monday arrestee opened with song, introducing Rev. Barber to the enthusiastic crowd gathered in the Bethel Lutheran Church on March 13, 2014.
Many thanks to the blue chedder blog, for documenting this. Check out the site for lots of photos.
They posted a preview of a piece by Glenn Schmidt, soon to be posted to Union Labor News:
In the vibrating crowd of at least 800 people in the pews of Bethel Lutheran Church in Madison on March 13, Barber’s call and response was not at all out of place. “Moral dissent,” the crowd repeated after him, “is the pathway,” here they paused again, “to higher ground,” pause, “in our nation.”
Isaiah and Ezekial soon found their way into the conversation. So did Rush Limbaugh, as Barber called out the radio talk show extremist, “Caring for the poor and workers’ rights is not Communism. It’s the Gospel.”
Barber reinforced the connection between North Carolina and Wisconsin by invoking the name of Father James Groppi, the Wisconsin priest who led civil rights marches in the sixties. “Many people saw Milwaukee as the Selma of the North,” Barber said.
Here’s some of the history Rev. Barber is referring to:
You can read more in “The Selma of the North: Civil Rights Insurgency in Milwaukee” by Patrick D. Jones.
blue chedder posted a partial transcript of Rev. Barber’s speech:
What extremists do – and notice I didn’t say “Democrat” or “Republican” – I said “extremist”.
What extremists do is they try to make us fight separately. They attack us separately and make us fight separately.
What me must understand is that extremist politics hurts us all.
I’ll never forget – in the middle of a LGBT fight in North Carolina – a reverend asked, “Well, why are you involved as a black preacher? Why were you involved with LGBT?” Well I said, “First of all this isn’t a war between the black church and LGBT. That’s a false notion. That’s the notion that the religious right tried to understand. If anybody understands race in america it’s the Black Church.”
Second of all I said to them, “Because the 14th amendment was passed to provide equal protection under the law for every citizen…
And because black people know the original sin of america which was racism and because black people know that once that sin was committed it took 250 years of travesty – of chattel slavery.
100 years of Jim Crow.
Martyrs and people being killed that we STILL haven’t gotten over.
We ought to be the last ones that want to see anybody codify hate into our constitution
And they, “Said that’s not the same thing as racial discrimination.” And I said, “I know that. But it’s discrimination.”
And because I’ve been touched by America’s original sin
of racial discrimination then i have to stand opposed to all the forms of it.”And using that argument we were able to get allies who were theologically – and in their own churches – based on the first amendment – the right from and for religion – they were not totally for same sex marriage but they stood with us against Amendment One on the moral and constitutional principle that even if I have not come to that point inside of my church sanctuary I have to be against anything that codifies hate and discrimination within the laws of this land.
Video: Singers carry Overpass Light Brigade letters that spell “Forward Together” into the Bethel Lutheran Church of Madison, Wisconsin where Rev. Dr. William Barber spoke to a packed audience on 03-13-2014
Rev. Dr. William Barber is a key leader in the North Carolina-originated “Forward Together” movement – which is also known as the “Moral Monday” movement.
Mary Ray Worley wrote the song that is being sung in this video. Many of the people singing in the front of the church have taken part in the daily Solidarity Sing Along tradition that is 3 years strong in the Wisconsin Capitol Building.
As a bonus, blue cheddar linked to a Yara Allen Freedom Song Workshop, held last November, which demonstrates how music is used as an organizing tool.
Movement historian, singer and musician Yara Allen leads a workshop on the importance of songs and chants in a movement at a Fast Food Workers convention in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The tradition of struggle continues.
Cross-posted from Black Kos
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