From today’s Charlotte Observer:
When Democratic presidential candidates met for their final debate in Iowa, more than a hundred protesters gathered just outside on the snowy grounds of Drake University.
Their goal: to urge the candidates to debate poverty. Holding signs, they carried a coffin representing the tens of thousands of people they said die every year from its effects.
Leading them was Rev. William Barber, the North Carolina pastor who co-chairs the national Poor People’s Campaign. Coming days before the holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., the rally was the latest in a series of events designed to carry King’s legacy into the 21st Century.
“I believe Dr. King would be right beside us,” Barber told the Observer. “He would say nothing would be more tragic than to turn back now.”
Barber, 56, is in the middle of a 25-state tour that will culminate in June with a mass march in Washington, where thousands are expected to call for an end to poverty and inequality and for greater access to health care and education.
Barber, who was born two days after King’s historic march on Washington, frequently invokes the civil rights leader in rallies and sermons even as he himself has invited comparisons with King.
“Brother William Barber is the closest thing we have to Martin Luther King Jr. in American culture,” said Cornel West, a Harvard professor and political activist.
Read the complete article here.