Speaking at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday, Reverend William Barber brought down the house — hitting hard at those who would use faith to justify hatred.
“In my heart I’m troubled, and I’m worried by the way that faith is cynically used by some to serve hate, fear, racism and greed,” he said. “Jesus, a brown-skinned Palestinian Jew, called us to preach good news to the poor, the broken, and the bruised, and all those that have been made feel unacceptable.”
Barber, who is the President of the North Carolina NAACP, has been a leader in the fight against restrictive voting rights laws in North Carolina, passed shortly after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. He previously told ThinkProgress that the laws are “a racist attack on our sacred right to vote, a right that was won with blood and the lives and souls of martyrs throughout the south.”
In addition to being a lead plaintiff in the court case against the laws, Barber is the leader of the Moral Monday protest movement, a social justice protest against the extreme measures pushed through by North Carolina’s right-wing controlled legislature.
In a fiery speech, Barber electrified the stadium at the Democratic National Convention on Thursday.
“When we fight to reinstate the power of the voting rights act, and we break the interposition and nullification of the current Congress, we in the south especially know, that when we do that we are reviving the heart of our democracy,” he said. “The heart of our democracy is on the line this November and beyond.”
“Now, my friends, they tell me that when the heart is in danger, somebody has to call an emergency code, and somebody with a good heart will bring a defibrillator to work on the bad heart. Because it’s possible to shock a bad heart and revive the pulse. In this season, when some want to harden and stop the heart of our democracy, we are being called like our foremothers and fathers to be the moral defibrillators of our time. We must shock this nation with the power of love. We must shock this nation with the power of mercy. We must shock this nation and fight for justice for all.”
“We can’t give up on the heart of our democracy, not now, not ever,” he said, to thunderous applause. “And so, and so I stopped by here tonight to ask, is there a heart in this house? Is there a heart in America?”
“Then stand up. Vote together. Organize together. Fight for the heart of this nation.”