“Bowing Down Is Not An Option”

A moral response to the 2016 elections and Trump era could catalyze the formation of new coalitions, and a new vision — a political, social pentecost — the Rev. Dr. William Barber told a gathering of New Haveners.

Marquand Chapel at Yale Divinity School was filled to capacity on Friday night for the visit by Barber, the president of the North Carolina NAACP.

He asked the audience to stand together and hold hands. More than 250 people in unison repeated the preacher’s urging: ​“Neighbor, you know why you are alive? Because God wants to use you in this moment to stand up to modern day Herods and Caesars, and to challenge hate with love, to challenge lies with truth, to challenge injustice with justice.”

The audience responded with Barber’s reference to the biblical tale of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and a tower-building, gold-laying, narcissistic egomaniac. They followed his call, affirming they would not bow down in this season when it came to justice, love, mercy and truth.

Led by Barber, voices filled the air in an enthusiastic choir: ​“Neighbor, let me look in your eyes and tell you, bowing down is not an option, not now, not ever — not now, not ever! One day, we will bow down when the rough patches are made smooth, and the crooked places are made straight, and the heels are brought low, but until then … until then … until then … bowing down is not an option!”

The message was loud and clear: Reject despair. Instead, thank God for being alive at this time in history, and for having the opportunity to stand up with your community for your beliefs, and to do the right thing.

During the evening, Willie Jennings, associate professor at Yale Divinity School, posed questions to Barber. The event was part of the school’s new Transformational Leadership for Church and Society program. The pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, N.C., Barber also founded the Moral Mondays movement. Through organized civil disobedience, starting in 2013, thousands of North Carolina residents protested against state actions that hurt the economically disadvantaged. This included reducing funding for public education and unemployment benefits, restricting abortion access and prohibiting state insurance coverage, and increasing voting restrictions. Barber also received national attention for his speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.

The year 2016 was not about Donald Trump, but resulted from a normalization of oppression, said Barber. He noted that across the country, for years politicians including U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan successfully ran on platforms overtly saying they would make things better by taking away people’s healthcare, denying people a living wage, cutting public education, attacking LGBTQ and Latino communities, scapegoating Muslims, suppressing voting rights and giving the NRA an ​“unholy control” over government. 

It is not about Democrat versus Republican, Barber argued. ​“The fact that people can run on that kind of agenda, to me says we have a moral deficit. Something is off-center, constitutionally and morally. Some things are just about what’s right and what’s wrong.”

He pointed out how members of Congress are eligible to receive healthcare for their entire lives. However immediately following the elections, certain politicians prioritized efforts to eliminate the Affordable Care Act. Without an alternative, this would then deny healthcare to many of the people who just elected these same politicians. ​“That’s just wrong. That’s just sinful,” said Barber.

Barber emphasized that historically Trump’s ideas are not new: ​“This ain’t the first time America elected a racist president. This is not the first time a white man has used division to secure votes in the South and in the Rust Belt.” He referred to historian Nell Painter’s description of the American call and response. There is a call to justice for people who suffer from systemic disadvantages, often minorities. Progress is made but then America responds with a backlash. ​“What we’re seeing is not an anomaly,” Barber said, ​“This is as American as apple pie.”

Barber recapped the following flash points in America’s historical struggle with racial justice: In 1865 slavery was abolished. With the Reconstruction period, within four years, there were voting rights for blacks and whites, public education, and legislatures with people of both races working together. America responded with a backlash. The Ku Klux Klan formed initially to intimidate whites who were working with blacks. Aggressive maneuvers against civil rights started at the state level, with voting rights restrictions and Jim Crow laws. [In 1875] the Mississippi Plan was devised to reverse the progress of the Reconstruction. Barber underscored how in 1877 Rutherford B. Hayes lost the presidential popular vote but promised the Electoral College that if elected, he would change the Supreme Court to roll back the gains of Reconstruction to ​“make America again.”

After the Civil Rights movement, racial progress occurred, and in 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in Brown v. the Board of Education that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Years later, segregation persisted. In 1963, in an inauguration speech, Alabama Governor George Wallace proclaimed ​“Segregation today … segregation tomorrow … segregation forever.” This normalized and gave permission for a certain type of language from elected officials, according to Barber. Later that year, four little girls were killed in the Birmingham Church bombing. Medgar Evers was shot dead by a white supremacist and before the end of the year President John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

Barber continued to trace the history of race in American politics through Presidents Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. Both avoided overtly racist language but instead used terms such as tax cuts, entitlement reform, forced busing and infringement of states’ rights, said Barber. He noted that the white southern strategy designed 50 years ago to cause people in the South to vote against their own self-interests still lives on today.

Barber and other activists in North Carolina noticed that the same state legislators who blocked funding for protecting the environment, also opposed living wages, education assistance, and a cluster of other issues.

“If these people are cynical enough to be together, why aren’t we smart enough to come together?” Barber asked. He advocated for a coalition or fusion of people working together to understand the intersectionality of their issues.

As history has shown, Barber described the U.S. legacy of racial progress as one that takes two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward and two steps back.

To effectively move forward, Barber set forth three points. First, the country needs to have a moral values examination. It cannot allow any longer the ​“so-called white evangelicalism” to publicly dominate the moral discussion. He urged the audience to get out of the church sanctuary and into the public square. Second, there needs to be an understanding of both race and class. He cited statistics that there are eight million more poor white people than poor black people, and five million more poor white people than poor Latinos. Yet, in the 12 poorest states,10 of which are in the South, the majority of white voters consistently support candidates who pass policies that hurt the poor. Finally, there is genuine fear and the country needs to figure out the income and economic justice problems. This is not just about Trump but about building a government by the people, for the people and to serve the people, said Barber. He promised to fight for this democracy and for the soul of the church. 

Yara Allen, the artistic voice for the Moral Mondays movement, provided musical inspiration, leading the audience in a call and response song. She sang the phrases, ​“Somebody’s hurting my brother/sister,” to which the audience would respond, ​“And it’s gone on far too long.”

With Barber, Allen modified the call of the song with current events, singing: ​“Somebody’s hurting the children. Somebody’s poisoning the water. Somebody’s stealing our healthcare. Somebody’s banning the Muslims. Somebody’s closing our borders. Somebody’s suppressing our votes.”

The audience responded, ​“And it’s gone on far too long,” singing periodically, ​“We’ve been just a little too quiet and we won’t be silent anymore.”