‘We Have Work to Do’: Rev. Barber Reviving Moral Monday in North Carolina

North Carolina’s Rev. Barber will return to Raleigh as the national Poor People’s Campaign mobilizes ahead of a June march on Washington. 

Nearly half, or 44%, of North Carolinians are poor or low-income, but they’re often ignored by state and federal politicians, says the Rev. Dr. William Barber II.

That’s why the civil rights leader from Goldsboro is reviving his Moral Monday protest next week in Raleigh. 

“You can’t have the levels of injustice that exist now and think the nation is built on a solid foundation,” Barber has said. “The only issue is a scarcity of moral consciousness. And the only way that changes is for us to realize we have work to do.”

Barber, a past president of the NC NAACP, is a co-leader of the Poor People’s Campaign, a modern revival of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1968 movement. King’s movement, like Barber’s, centers on uniting working-class and low-income people to call for better conditions in America.

Among the campaign’s current goals: to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour; pass voting protections at the federal level; and strengthening rights for workers to organize and unionize.

The rally will be held at 5 p.m. Monday at Raleigh’s Bicentennial Mall. The Moral Monday event is part of the build-up to a June 18 Moral March on Washington, and a similar event will be held in Wisconsin on the same day.