Greensboro's African American Community Newspaper since 1967
On the twelfth anniversary of the historic Moral Monday protests that left a positive legacy for progressive activism in North Carolina, its founder, Bishop William Barber, kicked-off the new “Moral Mondays at the Capitol” this week in Washington, D.C. to ramp up public opposition to the proposed 2026 budget by Republican President Donald Trump.
The Christian social activist was also arrested by Capitol Police for peacefully praying for the nation in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. He was later released.
“If a preacher knows that legislators are developing policy that will create injustice, it is our duty to go down to the palace of the King,” Bishop Barber later wrote in an email to his supporters Tuesday.
Barber is promising a series of Moral Monday demonstrations in the nation’s capital in succeeding Mondays to protest actions by the Trump Administration and the Republican-led Congress.
Amidst a gathering of faith leaders and progressive activists from across the nation on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court Monday, Bishop Barber, on behalf of his nonprofit organization Repairers of the Breach, spoke out against the Trump - GOP budget, saying that government budgets are “moral documents,” and that the poor people who will be hurt by the severe federal budgets coming “…must be united in our moral resistance against injustice, corruption, and oppression in any form.”
Bishop Barber wasn’t the only high-profile progressive leader to recently speak out against the impending Trump-GOP budget cuts.
On Sunday, April 27th, Barber joined House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries and New Jersey Democratic Senator Cory Booker on their live-streamed appeal to concerned voters from the steps of the U.S. Capitol about proposed Republican budget cuts to important programs such as Medicaid, Head Start and the Low-Income Energy Assistance Program.
The proposed budget cuts, if passed, would also slash federal social safety net programs for federal housing assistance, education, and food for poor children in order to provide relief for the nation’s billionaires and millionaires, Jeffries of New York, and Booker of New Jersey, charged.
The Republican-led Congress, after a two-week recess, began this week taking up what Bishop Barber called this “great big ugly bill.”
“It’s destructive, and it’s deadly, because policies are not benign,” Barber continued during remarks at the Jeffries-Booker livestream Sunday. “Policies don’t kill you quick, but they kill you over time. Because constant neglect is a form of political violence and abuse,” the social activist added, noting that statistics show that 800 people a day die in poverty.
Bishop Barber maintained that the Trump-GOP budget cuts will only make that situation worse for poor and low-wage people.
“We cannot allow this budget to go untalked about,” Barber continued.
“We have to have pulpits that are on fire, and people who will say, ‘The only way a wannabe king gets to be king, is if we bow.’”
