Barber calls North Carolina’s redistricting efforts “surgical racism” and vows to fight back in court, in the streets, and at the ballot box.
His legs are unsteady — he walks haltingly, supporting himself on canes — and he often wears a mask to protect his immune system. But Bishop William J. Barber II, the Yale University theologian, pastor, and civil rights warrior, is gearing up for another fight.
On Friday, Barber, president and senior lecturer for Repairers of the Breach, announced his new target: North Carolina’s new congressional map, a gerrymandering scheme to seize more seats for House Republicans in next year’s midterm congressional elections.
The Stakes: Democracy on the Line
At a joint press conference with the nonprofit Forward Justice, Barber announced he will lead a statewide campaign pushing back against the map, which will wipe out one of North Carolina’s Black congressional districts. He also said a lawsuit is in the works, but withheld details until the suit is finalized.
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The state is the third to answer President Donald Trump’s call for more GOP seats, helping Republicans maintain control of Congress next fall
Barber, the founder of the Moral Mondays movement, also said his organization and Forward Justice will convene a November 2 Mass Moral Fusion Meeting, where more details about the anti-gerrymandering campaign will be disclosed. While drawing up new maps a year before elections is new, Barber said the tactics state Republicans used to create them are old hat.
”We’ve seen this pattern before,” Barber said. “It’s what I call ‘surgical racism with surgical precision’ — the use of redistricting and voting laws to divide, diminish, and deny” the will of the people.
More Than a House Seat at Stake
Republicans, who hold a supermajority in the North Carolina state legislature, approved the veto-proof plan earlier this week. But Barber contends that far more than a House seat is at stake,
Engineering districts to increase the number of Republicans in Washington, he says, increases the GOP’s power to execute President Donald Trump’s agenda, including cutting access to healthcare, blocking a minimum wage increase, and shredding the social safety net.
“The truth is simple: when you steal people’s representation, you steal their healthcare, their wages, and their future,” he said. ”That’s why we will fight back: to make clear that in North Carolina and across America, the people’s will cannot be gerrymandered out of existence.”
Barber pointed out that redistricting is highly unpopular, with polls showing nearly 85% of North Carolinians don’t want it. He also noted that the Constitution clearly states that redistricting can occur only every 10 years, and the new map should be declared illegal..
“Pettus Bridge Moment”
The moment, Barber said, is their “Edmund Pettis Bridge moment,” referring to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s historic 1965 voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. He vowed to fight the redistricting in every arena possible.
”If they won’t hold public hearings, we will,” said Barber, who is also a professor of public theology and public policy and founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. “We will fight back in the courts, in the streets, and at the ballot box — Black, white, and brown together, because our democracy is not for sale. We will not be diluted, dismissed or denied.”
Last Sunday, Barber and his team led prayer vigils and peaceful sit-ins at statehouses in Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. The protests, he said, urged lawmakers to stop using people’s lives as pawns in political standoffs that block vital healthcare and assistance.”
Lives at Risk
Dr. Scott Crawford, a Mississippi organizer with Barber’s Moral Monday movement, said the time to act is now.
”This is as serious as it gets,” he said. “We know people will die if this bill becomes law — an estimated 51,000 lives lost every year.”
Although his protests deal with politics, Barber said the message behind them is rooted in Biblical teachings. Still, he’s noticed that conservative lawmakers who campaign as devout Christians — like Sen. Ted Budd, a North Carolina Republican — lock their doors and try to push Barber out.
”Every time we come to [legislative offices] to pray, they say they love prayer, until the prayers come with truth,” Barber said. “Then, suddenly, their offices become ‘private property.’ But prayer is not a private act; it’s a public challenge to the injustice of our policies.”
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“A nation cannot claim to honor God while crushing the poor and the vulnerable,” he said.
