WASHINGTON – The Rev. William Barber II, the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, issued a call to arms in his final Sunday sermon before the November election.
In a powerful speech the co-leader of the Poor People’s Campaign declared: “If you know somebody is going to harm this democracy, you’ve got to speak out now,” by raising voices and by voting, he told a large crowd at Howard University’s Sunday chapel service in D.C. “If we ever needed a voice and a vote, we need it now.”
Barber didn’t even have to name Donald Trump as he preached to the largely African-American audience at one of the nation’s leading historically Black colleges and universities.
Republican nominee Donald Trump, a convicted felon and former president, had a long and sordid record of racism even before he entered the Oval Office. It’s only worsened ever since he marched down the golden escalator at Trump Tower nine years ago to announce his White House run.
By contrast, Democrat Kamala Harris, the incumbent vice president and first African-American/Asian American woman to be a major party’s nominee, has a long record as an advocate for civil rights, worker rights, constitutional rights, and especially women’s rights.
Barber’s remarks follow a declaration this past weekend by Trump at one of his rallies that he would not mind somebody shooting members of the press. He told the attendees that he was protected by bullet-proof glass so an assassin would have to shoot through the press gathered in the back of the venue in order to reach him and that he didn’t mind if the journalists were shot. Earlier he had called for courts-martial and executions of generals who have spoken out against him and he said that former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney should also be shot in the face “to teach her what war is all about.” Earlier he put her on his “enemies of the people list” along with Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff and said they too deserve execution.
Election is not about race
“This election is not about race. It’s about the future and it’s about policy,” Barber declared. “Only about 60% of the people have voted” in recent presidential elections, and fewer than that in off-year balloting, Barber explained. “If more of” the poor and low-wealth people who sat out those votes because “nobody talked to them” had voted in their own interests, “we wouldn’t have some of the people we have in office now” who oppose people’s needs. Early voting totals indicate that the people are indeed turning out to vote.
Running through a summary of the history of enslavement, and resistance, in America, starting with the first ships that arrived in Virginia, Barber injected a modern note when he came to the withdrawal of Union forces from the South part of a compromise that averted a threatened second Civil War after the intensely disputed election of 1876.
That compromise ended Reconstruction, withdrew Union troops from the last occupied Southern states, and ushered in Jim Crow.
Barber drew parallels between the racists in the 19th century and the MAGA moment today. “It’s been 147 years since they”—Southern white supremacists—“disrupted the political process, ran white supporters” of Black liberation “out of town, lynched Black Americans and said they were doing this in the name of ‘making America great again.’”
The reference to Trump’s slogan was not lost on the crowd.
As he spoke Trump continued pumping out his avalanche of lies. Repeatedly, last week, he declared that the 2020 election had been stolen, that he was “leading by a lot in the polls, and that due to policies of Kamala Harris “we are experiencing the worst inflation in our history.” All of those were lies and the one about the alleged stolen election was part of a Republican process now underway to again deny election results if Trump should lose.
Contrary to findings in numerous polls that the race is very tight or findings in false right-wing polls that Trump is winning, the reality is quite different. A reliable Iowa poll this week showed Harris leading Trump and Democratic congressional candidates way ahead of their Republican opponents. The methodology in that Des Moines Register poll selected as likely voters a pool of voters who will vote as opposed to the other polls that select likely voters based on those who have voted in the past.
Left out of all the polls showing the race to be deadlocked is the abortion rights factor. The DesMoines Register poll deals with and includes the many new women voters on the scene because they are fighting for the restoration of their abortion rights. The Iowa poll has been accurate for more than 40 years now.
At the very least, the poll should be encouraging to voters who have not yet voted and who have been told not to bother because Trump allegedly has it in the bag. Those voters have every reason to believe that they can make a difference and that they should indeed vote.
Also important is that if the poll is accurate it is likely that Republicans will lose control of the House. Even the mainstream polls that underestimate Harris’s support are showing she has leads in Nevada, North Carolina, and Georgia with deadlocks in Pennsylvania and Michigan. Nowhere then is Trump “way ahead” as he and his campaign claim.
Barber cited policy contrasts in this year’s contest between Republicans and Democrats in general and Trump and Harris in particular.
“Right now, one candidate says the $7.25 minimum wage is too high and the other wants to raise it to $15,” he commented. “The Lord hates feet that are quick to run to do evil and the Lord hates those who stir up conflict within the community” against others.
Trump ducked the question
Asked directly about raising the minimum wage, which has stalled for 15 years, Trump, during his shift for a show working at a McDonald’s recently, ducked the question.
“Well, I think this: I think these people work hard, they’re great, and I just saw something, the process. It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful thing to see. These are great franchises, they produce a lot of jobs,” he said. They’re minimum wage jobs and Trump refused to promise to try to raise wages for the workers there.
Barber drew parallels between Trump and fascists of the past.
He invoked outspoken defenders of human rights, including Fannie Lou Hamer, Dr. Martin Luther King, and German theologian Martin Niemoller, whom the Nazis executed. He recited Niemoller’s famous quotation of “First they came for…and I did not speak out” statement, adding the Palestinians to Niemoller’s list of workers, Jews, and others.
Barber’s organization, now in most states, has undertaken a years-long campaign to get poor and low-wealth people to register, to get them to vote, and to have them make sure, despite white supremacist schemes and skullduggery.
“When trouble is around, raise your voice and shout,” Barber urged. One big way to shout, he declared, is to “Vote! Vote! Vote!
“Jesus came and said ‘The spirit of the Lord is to speak and proclaim and declare, that the voice is to be a voice of liberation and justice.”
Early mail-in balloting and early voting from key swing states indicate the message has been taking hold. More than 1.4 million North Carolinians voted early, as did four million Georgians. Both are swing states in the November election.
Both figures dwarf the winning margins of four years ago, giving Georgia to Joe Biden and North Carolina to Republican Donald Trump, who is running again. The total presidential vote—mailed in, drop boxes, and in person–in Georgia in 2020 was 4.9 million.
And it’s not just the elders and civil rights movement veterans who must be in the struggle, Barber warned. Noting all the Howard students in the crowd, he challenged them “We call upon you to be the prophet” to raise such a voice.
And he warned all Americans against sitting on the sidelines. Indeed, Barber said, those who do so aid those who have created and perpetuated the poverty and low wealth that both Barber and the prophets he cited—Isaiah, the New Testament, and Christ—inveighed against.
Supporters of Harris and opponents of Trump have reason to be hopeful and not discouraged about voting. High on the list of reasons for this is that late-breaking deciders are going for Harris. Among the 8 percent of voters who said they have just this week decided those going for Harris are doing so 55 to 44 percent. If the 11 percent remaining today and tomorrow do that she will win decisively.
There is, of course, no crystal ball that can confirm what will happen in the future. What is certain is that turnout today and tomorrow will make a difference and that the nation will have to be ready to battle challenges from the MAGA forces if Trump loses the election and that there will have to be a continued battle for democracy if he wins the election.
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