Rev. Barber seeks to revive NC Moral Monday protests but faces a surprising obstacle | Opinion

At a time when Democratic leaders say President-elect Donald Trump and his MAGA movement threaten democracy, there seems surprisingly little interest in using a hallmark of democracy – the right to assemble and protest – to defend it.

Despite this quiet but tense national lull of protest, the Rev. William Barber II seeks to revive political outrage in North Carolina.

Barber, who led a wave of Moral Monday protests against the Republican-controlled General Assembly starting in 2013, says it’s time to march again. He has called for a mass protest at the State Legislative Building starting at 5:30 p.m. Monday.

This time, Barber is protesting Senate Bill 382, which seeks to strip powers from Democrats just elected to the posts of governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and superintendent of public instruction. Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed the bill, but the state Senate — after removing a group of protesters from the gallery — overrode the veto. The House appears likely to follow suit.

“This amounts to a political coup against duly elected government officials. It is an attempt by a supermajority to use that majority to thwart the will of the voters,” Barber said. “Every North Carolinian that believes in justice and believes in democracy, it’s time to show up.”

If Barber hopes to lead a revival of street-level activism among progressives, he will first have to clear the fog of resignation — or at least reluctance — clouding their ranks.

When I asked the North Carolina NAACP what it thought about Barber’s call to action, the group said it would have no comment. The North Carolina Association of Educators, which helped organize marches on the State Legislative Building for higher teacher pay in 2018 and 2019, said it did not know enough about Barber’s plans to comment.

In an interview on Friday, Barber said reviving Moral Mondays won’t be affected by Trump’s election and the protest will involve more than progressives. He said, “This is about our North Carolina legislature.”

He said the state’s high voter turnout, the election of Democrats statewide and the breaking of the Republicans’ legislative supermajority reflect broad opposition to the legislature’s actions.

“When the voters speak and (Republican lawmakers) don’t like it, they try to undo it — and that motivates people,” Barber said. Noting that Republicans used a hurricane relief bill to strip Democrats of power while shortchanging Hurricane Helene victims in western North Carolina, he said, “People are just sick of this foolishness.”

The turnout for this Moral Monday protest won’t matter as much as the message, he said. “We’re committed to alerting the state that (the legislature) will not do this in the dark.”

Barber, a former pastor in Goldsboro and former head of the North Carolina NAACP, now teaches at Yale Divinity School and serves as co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival. His rhetorical power and national reputation are stronger than ever, but that may not be enough to stir the kind of protests that drew national attention to North Carolina’s reactionary legislature during the Moral Monday protests.

In those days, Moral Monday protesters’ demands included calls for Medicaid expansion, more support for public schools, and an end to gerrymandering and laws aimed at voter suppression. Over time, nearly 1,000 protesters, including Barber, were arrested at the Legislative Building on trespassing and other charges.

Some hope that Barber can again bring change by rallying a wide range of people angry about the legislature’s latest high-handed and anti-democratic actions.

“This time it could be even more effective,” said Douglas Wilson, a Democratic strategist based in Charlotte. “This is not about tax cuts. This is about stripping powers. The Moral Monday protests will highlight those things and I think voters will say, ‘Wait a minute, this isn’t what we voted for.’ “