The Rev. William Barber III. and his Moral Mondays have never had a more opportune moment to address the nation’s immorality than this week as the Senate passes its spending bill. On Monday, as is his wont, Barber led scores of clergy and lay people on a walk to the Supreme Court as a singer did a rendition of “Walk With Me, Lord.” Several members of the group carried 50 life-sized cardboard coffins symbolizing the number of people who would be victims if their Medicare benefits were lost in each of the 50 states. Placards fastened to the coffins bore a ominous warning, “This coffin represents policy murder.”
Arrayed in a gold and brown vestment with black and white cloth, Barber projected the solemnity of the moment and then said “There’s something evil when you’ve got power and you’ve got free health care simply because you got elected to office but then you want to block the people from having health care,” he preached, his words directed at the senators poised to vote for Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
He had a special denunciation for his state senator Thom Tillis, who came out against the bill, charging that his party was making a “mistake.” Barber corrected him, “This is no mistake. This is policy violence. This is policy murder. That’s why we brought these caskets today.”
The bill was by no means beautiful, but “damnable and dangerous,” Barber said, and any person with any degree of morality would amen the good minister, and we certainly do.
Barber has been unwavering in his campaign for poor people, picking up the baton left behind by Dr. King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy. If those people dependent on Medicare are without their benefits, more than 50,000 are projected to die in the first year alone. And that number is sure to escalate with each passing day, to say nothing of the hungry children in need of the SNAP program that is also endangered.
The good preacher has promised not to stand down to the bill’s devastation, and we must find the same resolve and pressure our leaders to step up and resist what is sure to be a calamitous outcome with its passage.
Moral Mondays are fine but we need a push for morality everyday of the week, every week of the year, and every year of our lives.