Bishop William Barber sermon to urge voting at Howard University
Nationally renowned public theologian and civil rights leader Bishop William J. Barber II will bring the 100 Days of Voter Mobilization tour to Howard University in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, November 1. The appearances consist of two events connected to the November 3 General Election and take place at Cramton Auditorium, 2400 6th St NW.
The 9:00 AM Important Conversations program features a public discussion with journalist Joy Reid. Held in Cramton Auditorium, the session includes Bishop Barber, Reid and audience members. It addresses issues and oppression affecting communities and the nation while stressing the need to expand the electorate and vote in the coming election and beyond.
At 11:00 AM Bishop Barber delivers a nationally televised Chapel Service in the same auditorium. The sermon is expected to challenge every HBCU and progressive university nationwide to mobilize students to the polls. University presidents are urged to lead marches to the polls.
The Howard University events follow a week of tour stops in Alabama, Mississippi, Kansas, Missouri, Maryland and additional states. The Love Forward Together initiative employs peer-to-peer text messaging, grassroots phone banking, door-to-door canvassing and related methods to reach 5 million low-wage infrequent voters, especially in the South and battleground states, while organizing 1,000 marches to the polls.
The 100 Days of Action launched July 27, marking 100 days until Election Day. The Moral Monday Public Pulpit Coalition calls for 1,000 Marches to the Polls beginning the first day of early voting in every state. Churches, synagogues, campus groups, lodges and street corners are asked to mobilize, educate, march and vote. Marches must remain non-violent and non-partisan on the first day of early voting or on Election Day where early voting is unavailable.
Bishop William J. Barber II stated, “Our vote is our voice, and when we march together, our voices harmonize into an undeniable call for justice.”
Bishop William J. Barber II serves as President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach and as Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy plus Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He is Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival and Bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries. He authored five books including We Are Called To Be A Movement, Revive Us Again, The Third Reconstruction, Forward Together and White Poverty. He pastored Greenleaf Christian Church for thirty years, led the North Carolina NAACP from 2006 to 2017 and sat on the National NAACP Board from 2008 to 2020. Barber created the Forward Together Moral Movement that produced the 2013 Moral Monday protests. He founded Repairers of the Breach in 2015. He has been arrested more than fifteen times. Keynote addresses include the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the 59th Inaugural Prayer Service for President Biden and Vice President Harris, the Vatican and the Uni Global Union World Congress. Media appearances feature MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post and The Nation. Awards include the 2020 BET 100, 2019 North Carolina Award, 2018 MacArthur Genius Award, 2015 Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award and Puffin Award. He holds twelve honorary doctorates, a bachelor’s degree from North Carolina Central University, a Master of Divinity from Duke University and a Doctorate from Drew University.
Repairers of the Breach was founded in 2015 by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II. Its mission supports moral movements for change and trains fusion leaders including activists, artists and people of faith who organize from the bottom up. The organization is headquartered in North Carolina with organizers, religious leaders, artists, strategists and advocates working nationwide. Its approach centers leaders directly impacted by systemic injustice.
The organization advances protecting voting rights, economic justice and workers’ and labor rights, quality education and healthcare for all, environmental justice, LGBTQIA+ and women’s rights, immigrant rights and justice for Indigenous nations, strong social welfare programs and living wages, ending the war economy and militarization of communities, and ending the false moral narrative of religious nationalism.
Repairers of the Breach provides leadership to the Poor People’s Campaign including support to over thirty state coordinating committees. It maintains interfaith religious affairs programs that train diverse faith leaders in moral articulation, analysis and action plus cultural arts and theomusicology programs that supply music and artistic tools for movement building.
The organization traces its historical roots to the Moral Mondays protests and the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national attention in 2013 at the North Carolina General Assembly.
Recent marches to the polls under the initiative include events at Killeen Senior Citizen in Texas, St. James Episcopal Church in Black Mountain, North Carolina, Cheektowaga Senior Center in New York, New Hope in Salisbury, North Carolina, Morganton, North Carolina, Evansville, Indiana, Neighborhood Church of Dorchester in Boston, and Rocklin, California. The coalition continues to call on groups in all fifty states to organize additional non-violent, non-partisan marches on the first day of early voting or Election Day.
