I am thrilled tonight to join you here on the warning with two men I admire a great deal. We have Jonathan Wilson Pargrove, Minister Jonathan with us, and of course we have Bishop William Barber. And both of these men are new to Substack, where they are spreading a gospel of not just the Good Lord's teachings, but of Americanism.
And we're going to talk about that. One of the things that I've been dealing with is I took my eighty year old mother to the Normandy Landing Beaches, which is something that she wanted to see a few weeks before. I had the great privilege in Jackson, Mississippi to stand in the driveway on the spot where Medgar Evers was gone down. He was a Normandy veteran. I was at the spot where Medgar Evers would have come ashore, where
he would have begun his duty and his journey. And I have been dealing with an incandescent anger as I walked amongst the gravestones the betrayal of American values and ideals. And I know that anger is not healthy, and I know that anger is not productive. But I know my anger about what is happening is very real, and so I couldn't think about two better people to talk about
three things before we talk about registering million voters. I'd like to talk about anger, because there's a lot of angry people in America angry about what's happening, and I'm one of them. I'd like to talk about doubt. It doesn't seem like men like Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King ever dealt with doubt, But the record shows they all had crises of faith and they all doubted, and we look at them as lions who
were strong when everybody else wavered. But it's more complex about that. And then lastly, to talk about faith and how to let go and trust that there is a plan and that things will turn out. And so, with no further ado for me, turn over to you, Reverend Barber, for those of us that are wrestling with anger, with depression, with doubt, with a crisis of faith in the country, how should we process all of this?
Well, first of all, Steve, thank you so much for having Jonathan and I and the name of your show is really how we should deal with the warning. My father was also a world War two better. And he went in when the army, and that offerses, was segregated.
But despite the segregation, and despite the fact that he was drafted, and some say to give first class blood for second class citizenship, he knew the deeper meaning and the possibility and the hope of this country if she leaned into what she had said on paper about establishing justice, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, and ensuring domestic tranquility and equal protection under the law. And nobody had the authority to deny or abridge the right
to vote. And so he went in the navy drafted. By the time for the war was over, you know, there was some desegregation of his armed forces. And he went in angry, Steve, he went in angry. But let me say a word theologically about anger. The scriptures, the prophets of the Bible were all angry and injustice. They were angry when they saw people being beaten and betrayed. Take for listening to these words, for instance, Isaiah, woe unto you who legislate evil and robbed the pull of
their rights. That doesn't sound like somebody is happy or cry loud and spare not blow your chauffeur, tell the nation of your sins. Or Jeremiah saying it owed that my head was a fountain of tears, that I might weep and cry on behalf of the nation. Or Jeremiah saying I said I wasn't gonna talk anymore about the things of God, but the word is like fire, shut
up in my bone. Or Jesus the first day of Holy With on Monday, turns over the tables in the temple, says there's something's wrong here when the place where people are supposed to come for hope and piece has been turning into a dead of beef. And Paul says to us, be angry and sin not. Now what that means is anger comes from and grief. If you're not greathing right now at what you see happening, if you don't grieve
and have a sense of grief and anger. When every day President, for instance, and a hit and the majority in the Congress get up and say, let's figure out how we can knock thirty six million people off of health care, off of Medicaid, which we know will cost people their lives. If something doesn't bother you deep down, as doctor, the King said one time, you are to have a a what did he call it? Anger against the injustice? An inherent and an inexhaustible anger. You should
never be satisfied, never be satisfied. Now, what we don't want to be is mad in the sense where we're going mad, or we're gonna lose our minds, or we're gonna start using violence and tang up things. But anger at injustice, anger at wrong, anger at hate itself, hating the sin, finding a way to love the sinner is very, very very much a part of what morral descent is. How can you be smiling and eight hundred people are dying a day from posdy and we could stop it.
How can you be silent when when folk are saying no to just raising the minimum wage and raising minimum wage to a living wage, when and it hadn't been done since twenty or nine, when CEOs are making three hundred and four hundred times, well, how can you not be angry and bothered and mal adjusted? That's King's word, mal adjusted When you actually see the Constitution being violated, not something but every day by the administrator, When you see people being picked up and taken abroad and put
in other jail frustration. I'm angry, but the question is what do you do with that anger? What do you do with it that becomes degranded?
Question, Bishop Barber, we've lost your image.
Yeah, I'm gonna put it back. I just think I think somehow it got twisted around, but you lost Stay with it, and I'm gonna get right back.
I'll tell a quick story while he flips that around. This is absolutely true that you know, in some ways we would be losing our humanity if we weren't angry. But people who aren't used to being angry have to learn where to find the spiritual resources to deal with it.
So there was a young there was a young white man who went down to ebenez Or Baptist Church to do his ministry internship with doctor King when he was in seminary, and he came into the church one day after having been harassed on the street by white folks who were who were mad at him for working with these black folks for civil rights. And he didn't he didn't have any experience of being attacked and harassed and
yelled at in that way. So he went into doctor King's office and he said, how in the world do you deal with this. And Doctor King's secretary, as the story told, was asking at the moment for him to take the phone for a call from the Justice Department, but he said, no, wait a minute, I need to
talk to this young man. And he said He looked at him, and he said, you have to reach down on the inside and find the internal resources, the internal resources that make it possible for you to tap in to the deepest of who you are, because that's both the source of the grief that Bishop Barbara is talking about, but that's also where we're going to find the strength to come together and to build the kind of community
that gives hope. So I think we need to remember the lessons of folks like that too.
And Steve can I make one point. When Rosam Hawks sat down, remember what caused to sit down on that bus? People had sat down before her in Mountgomery. She had gotten great hope. In nineteen fifty four, the Brown decision had happened. Clesey versus Ferguson was overturned after nearly sixty years of fighting. But then in the midst of that, Emmett Till gets killed in kind of a reaction to
the Brown decision and then his killers get acquitted. And contrary to to oftenime, we present Roses, this nice little, sweet little lady, Rosa Parks investigated rapes black women before she ever sat down that bus. She did not. She was very bothered by grieving, if you will, by whatever. And when she saw what happened to Emmett Till and
they got acquitted, she then got with some women. They sent her to Highlander, and she knew that she had to reach way down, as Jonathan said, to resources that would allow her to stand up to the system that was destroying people. And that's the difference between righteous indignation, righteous anger, and unrighteous madness when you just lose it. Because when you have righteous anger, the one thing you don't want to become is if you will your adversary
or your envy. You don't want to become like them. You want to be different. But what you don't want to do is dismiss the anger. Lastly, when you see, you know, people talking about in the midst of the hard time, we're gonna take two trillion dollars and just give it away back to at the pope called market forces, which will never have delivered hope for everybody or we're going to attack voting rights and lie and suggest that that's flawging to not be angry. And I'm gonna tell
you where. For me it is when I see my mother. One day I went home. She's ninety seven years old. My mother helped desegregate schools down in eastern North Carolina. And she said to me, son, I know you're sixty some years old now, she said, but I never thought I would have a son or a child that would have to fight the battles. I thought we already won. And she cried. And what I call it is the one tear cried. In black communities, sometimes women talk about
they cried one tier out of one side. That think that means they are greatly disturbed. If that means they a bothered and upset and angry. And she cried that one tier. And then she looked at me and said, I never wanted or thought you would have to fight, but you better fight. What you better not do in this moment is sit down and dismiss it and act like it's okay and say, well, I've made it, and the other folks just gonna have to get along the
best way they can. This is the actual wrong season not to have the kind of righteous in the nation and anger that the Bible talks about, which is which, which is necessary, and will force you to reach down and say, what do I do with this? What do I do with this to change the situation? Because if we're anglish deed, imagine what the people are who are losing their health care. Imagine what the people are to the that that got to figure out the night. Do I sleep in the car to night or do I
buy some medicine or some milk? If we're angry, imagine where they are. And what we don't want to see is a country that turns to madness because the energy is going to go somewhere. It's going somewhere. And so this is the very moment that we need a moral movement that says the folk, we do have guidelines and compasses for what we do in moments of history where anger is a necessary part, just like truth and justice
and crying and tears. And this is one of those moments that we have to transfer my anger into deep righteous action that seeks to change what is going on.
When I'm walking these beaches in Normandy and or standing in the Canadian cemetery, and you see the graves. I went and stood on the spot in Dashoba County, Mississippi where the three civil rights workers were murdered in nineteen sixty three. And these people, American martyrs, all gave their lives, people who didn't have much, not like El Musk in the way of material things, but gave everything they had and more for the most ephemeral concept freedom, dignity to
live life in God's image. And when you ponder that sacrifice and you think about this moment, your sub stack is called this moral moment, and it is a moral moment. And I think that when we talk about politics, there's an allergy on the part of a lot of politicians,
particularly democratic politicians, to combine politics and morality overtly. And I don't see how we get out of this unless it is framed as fundamentally what it is, which is a moral crisis and a moral fight between right and wrong, and that seeing that clearly is of the highest highest importance. And so for example, when a democratic governor says, well, mister Garcia, who has been sold to an al Salvador and gulag to a dictator, is the wrong fight at
the wrong time. My response to that, not as a spiritual leader, not as a moral leader, but as a political strategist, is that could not be more wrong. Is that sometimes the fights we must fight and the time we must fight them are not chosen by us but by others. But it does not alleviate the necessity of the fight. And so I'd just like to hear you both talk about this exact moment in time through that
prism of the moral moment. And let me just say that one of the most important things we have almost two thousand people on and many more we'll see it in the aftermath. If you are not subscribing yet to Reverend Barbara, Bishop Barbara and to Minister Jonathan's Moral Moment, sub stack, please do so. These are two of the most important voices. We'll get more into this in this country,
in this moment right now. And so one of the things about Bishop Barber, one of the things about Jonathan, when you think about all of the great things that they have done, I don't have a doubt in my mind in that book of records that chronicles what we did in our time here, what these men will be most remembered for is a lifetime of service to others,
but acutely in this moment of crisis. And so these are exceptional men coming into this exceptional moment I feel, I know in a profound way, and that's why I want all of you to follow them. But I just ask you, Bishop Barbara, can you talk about the moral moment?
As you said, you know Steven and said, I think that for you to raise what a governor said, now the democratic government said about the wrong fight actually portrays the moral shallowness and weakness that we must overcome. Benjamin Franklin actually said that it would be better for one hundred guilty men to go free than for one innocent
person to be found guilty. In our system where the constitution is designed to protect the minority in the real sense, like, for instance, it doesn't require fifty people's constitutional right to be violated for it to be wrong. If one person's right is violated, they can go to court challenge the
violation on costitus the ground. Why is that because something called president If you start allowing a president and his gang to just lift people off the street, to admit that they picked up somebody innocent and to send them away, and there's no moral outcry. Then you open up the door for that to become president, and the question becomes who's next. What we're wrestling with, Steve, And it's not even an issue of being political versus moral or religious.
Nobody is argued. Jonathan and I have not argued that everybody has to be Christian or a particular faith. However, we say in this country that money of our laws are rooted into their Christian traditions. But when we mean Maral movement, we mean a place even where people who may not have a particular the religious faith, but they believe deeply in the Morrow foundations that were written on paper in this country, even when the men that wrote
them were not living up to them. I often say one of the great things about those back then is they wrote into the process amendments that you could change. And maybe it's because they recognized that they were flawed in the way in which they were following the very things they wrote, but they wanted to give succeeding generations
the ability not to stay that. So, for instance, in the Decoration of Independence, it actually said Steve that when there's been a long train of abuses, it is the duty ut y of of people to change that system of government, to throw it off when there's been abuse out and so in a real sense, when we're saying default is when you swam, When politician, you put your hand on that Bible and you swam the uphold the Constitution, what you're really saying is every piece of policy that
I support will meet these basic standards. Number one would does it establish justice or is it just for a few? Two? Does it provide for the common defense of all? Three? Does it promote the general welfare? Four? Does it bring the community peace or disunity? Five? Does it represent equal protection under the law? And if that policy doesn't meet those basic mal principles, then it is wanting. It is of being constitutional, it's flawed. It's a matter of right
versus wrong. When courtbook are sitting there. The other day in his Senate speech, he actually was lifting something that we've been saying in our movement since we since repairs to the breach was found the all the way back to Themorrow movement in North Carolina. When we said the folk, they said, but you don't have the votes. It's another group in majority said that it has nothing to do
with moral descent. Who's in the majority because if the majority is not following its own oath, then that majority must be challenged. I'll give you one quick example in North Carolina, when black and white people came together in eighteen sixty eight to rewrite the constitution in a way that moved us away from the vestitors of slavery and
discrimination to a more just society. They guaranteed the public education as a fundamental right in the state of North Carolina, that every legislature had to ensure that every child, at that time's male child, but later on every child had had had a quality education, a sound basic So when we assue that, we found not all one hundred counties, but a number of counties where that was not happening. And the courts agreed, because what they said was you
cannot swear uphold that. And then when you get in the office, cut all the money in public education, cut all the money. You can't do. It's contract is wrong. And so today we have to have a moral movement.
When you have people saying in the mag of movement, and and you've got these uh uh uh, this this gang of billionaires they call themselves the dark Mafia, or you've got people now talking about uh apocalyptic fascism, you know, fascism that wants to live a form of running government that literally wants to say things are ending and then ended. In other words, you're self fulfilling prophecy, you say, and you want to do this regardless of who it hurts.
As long as a few peoples of our people are talking about they want free cities where a certain it's not we the people is us few, us few, not we just us few. Those are dangerous im moral categories. It's dangerous in all ways of talking about leading a country, and they must be challenged. This is a moment. Lastly, whether whether you believe in the molarc of the universe bes toward justice that you need to be a part of bending it. If you're a person of faith and
your faith tells you that those empowered politicians. As my book tells me and Matthew twenty five, it says that every nation steed not individual, It's not by individual piety. Every nation will be judged by these four critiques. When I was hungry, did you feed when I was naked? Did you clothe me? When I was an immigrant? Did you welcome me when I was in prison? Did you come to see and when I was sick, did you
visit me? And that up he'll me. How you treat the least of these is a judgment on the nation. And and and and we've had these battles in America before, time and time again. And there are moments like ending slavery. There are moments like women's suffrage. There are moments like
when you need a new deal. There are moments throughout the American process when the only thing that got us out was when say, for instance, Kennedy or Johnson would give a speech and say, fundamentally, this is a moral issue. Or Roosevelt would say something like, uh, we only have to see the only thing we have to fee and fear itself. Or any court operation that doesn't pay people of basic living wad has no right to really exist
and work in America. Or Teddy Roosevelt when he broke with both parties in nineteen twelve and gave his bull speech and said that they are just some fundamental things, protecting the environment, long term care for our senior citizen, paying a basic minimum wave He said those issues were not Democrat or Republican. It really was about right versus wrong. We must have a massive movement of people, clergy, rabbis, im mobs, people of faith, people not of faith, who
believe in tomorrow universe. To say what we are seeing right now is just wrong. It's just wrong. And it's not just wrong in terms of feeling wrong. It's wrong because it's deadly, it's hurting people. It's political violence, it's social balance, it is policy. And I feel like Frederick Douglas when he said something because this critique has to
be rooted in love. And this is what Frederick Douglas said when he was asked one time, what did he think about slaveholding religion that justified slavery, tried to make that which is wrong right, which we see happening today with the so called religious nationalism. Frederick Douglas said, because I love the peaceable, pure, just and truth telling religion of Jesus, I must hate the lying man, stealing, destructive religion of the slave master. You cannot love one without
hating the other. There are ideals. It's not about being against one person, it's about what's being promoted. And you cannot be for freedom at liberty on the one hand, and then be for tyrancy and abuse of the law on the other, the two can't exist equal. They're not too equal existing moral positions one is wrong and one is right.
One of the gifts of one of the gifts of our life is that we get to teach public theology to our students at Yell Divinity School. And when we do, we look at these moral movements in the history of the United States, and Reverend Barber mentioned a few of them. I mean, there was the fight against the claim that you could own other human beings. There was the fight for labor rights, fight for women's suffrage, the civil and
human rights of the mid twentieth century. And in all of these movements, when we look closely at where the moral authority came from, at the heart of it, it's that people who were directly impacted by these injustices stood up right. I mean, we always need all kinds of leaders, but the moral authority at the root of these movements are you know, women like Fanny lou Hamer who says,
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. You know, I know this from my own experience, and so in this moment, I think it's critical in the movement building that we're trying to do that. We listen closely to you know, who are the people who are the people
who are being directly impacted. I mean the moral voice that's ringing out about this neighbor of ours who has been disappeared to the prison you mentioned in Ol Salvador is his wife and kids and their neighbors who are crying out and say, we know that God hears our cry. We know that this is wrong, and we're inviting our neighbors to join us in this. I think that's the kind of voices we need at the heart of a moral movement.
Steep I mentioned one peace just cross. There is this scripture in the ancient Hebrew text, and I want your listeners today to hear the sound of it because it is applicable. The prophet is looks at the nation and he sees how people are using He says, he says, we must loose the bands of wickedness. That's the language, but in Hebrew, when you translate that, it means pay people what they deserve. In other words, to refuse to pay people what they deserved in the ancient prophet's mind
was a form of wickedness. To be the greed was a form of wickedness, and and and then but then earlier he's looking at the unholy uh alliance of some people, from corruptive people in the in the religious order, and the politicians or the princes, if you will, that they say, and he says this word whoa? Now, whoa we? Anytime you see that I come from the country steed. Well, well that's what you said to a stubborn me.
Whoa stop.
So the fact that the prophet says whoa to the whole nation who't? And then he says, to those who legislate evil, Now that's not my word, these are words straight out of scripture. Who legislate evil and rob the poor poo r of their rights and make women and
children p r a e y pray. If you listen at that imagery, it is saying whenever politicians use their power not to uplift people, but they get caught up in some kind of mythology that convinces now the right use of power is to get up every morning they figure out who you can hurt, particular only those on the margins. That that is a form of wickedness, It is a form of evil, and it must be challenged both in hopes that the people doing it will be redeemed and changed and see the error of their way,
but to stop what is going on. And so in our movement we think there are four movements. First, in a moment like this, you must have what we call moral analysis, what's really going on, So we get the best think tanks and people to exam. Right now, we have a piece called the High moraw calling of this budget, the high moral cost of this budget, And we went inside of it and looked at these numbers and how
devastating it will be. One number one of the footnotes is twenty four million children, not black children, but white, twenty four million children losing access to free and reduced lunch. We looked at if you cut medical k the way it's going to have to be cut, what it would do the rural hospital, what it will do in Appalachia and in the delta of Mississippi. Then you but you have to have Marlin. Now, then if you have Marral analysis,
you have to have what we call marl articulation. How do you get how do you make that persons understand what's going on Because a lot of times so much is done with so much cover up. You know, the Pope before he died said, isn't it strange that if
Wall Street goes down, it's a headline story. But if somebody is sleeping in their car having to decide how they're going to feed their family, but they also work every day, but they work at such a low wage they can't afford a basic two bedroom apartment, how is that not a headline story? These are the contradictions. So how do we articulate, how do we get the voice not of people speaking for people? But people are young and said themselves, which is the greatest marbles. Then the
third thing is maral agenda. No anger at injustice is sufficient if you don't offer a replacement. If you don't offer, you can't just curse the darkness. You have to say there is something better, there's a way better, and this is what the better way would look like. But then finally you have to take mall action. Now your listeners may not know this, but on ass Wednesday, we took about four hundred clergy and impact the people into the rotunda,
I mean into the capitol. Now there's an insurrection, was a resurrection, and delivered to them this study called the High bar car. Do you all really realize what you're doing? Remember all five hundred some of them, and we delivered it to both the Speaker of the House and opposition parties leaders so far, and then we get they gathered in the retunda. I didn't go in deliberately on last Wednesday? Do you know Steve that when they got in the rotunda and they were asked by one of the officers
what do y' all planned to do? And they said, we plan to buy our heads in pray. The officer told them the new rules are. If you buy your head in prayer, it will be seen as an act of violation and aggression in a country that says we have the freedom of religion and the freedom of speak. You tell clergy who were in full vestments by the way, Steve roads crossing, you know, to let people know press all for our Jewish brothers and sisters, if you just
buy it. When we have gone to that left and that depth, we cannot refuse to take action, non violent action, whatever it takes to put our bodies on the line in such a way that our bodies speak and say the folk this is wrong and it doesn't have to be and it will only be if we be quiet and we don't say anything, because the only way a king gets to be a king is if the people about it.
Right, Ron, Barbara, do you plan to go back to Washington, to the Capitol rotunda and bow your head and face possible arrest.
Well, I tell you what I'm living to do. On this coming Monday. We have called for clergy all over the country and impacted people to join us for the beginning of Marrow Monday in DC. We're going on this fourth Monday and then every first Monday of the month, and it may escalate bigger, but we're gonna start with
the first Monday. It will happen. We were on the call last night with hundreds of clergy and impact the people, and we're going, and we're going this particular Monday to deliver to every member of the Congress what the budget will do to workers and children. Because the process of nourvice is you have to make sure that the persons you're standing against know exactly why you're doing it. We
do intend to go in full investment. We do intend to go in the rech under like any other visitor, and I will have to for as reasons leave that we never go to get arrested. We never do anything and get arrested. But what we will do at times is we cannot say yes to something that is contrary to both our promises of our faith and promises of our democracy. So I'm going with others who are coming and we and but we're not. It's not a spectacle
one time, Steed. We're launching smorrow Monday in DC. Folk can go to Breach Repairs dot org and learn all about it. And we've got a lot of other partners and denominational leaders that are joining us in impact the people that are joining.
Does the clergy that you're going with generally agree that it is important to be able to if they choose bow their head and pray under the rotunda in the United States Capital as is their first amendment?
Right? Oh yeah, they all agree with that. And people have to make decisions because you know, we've been told some things about even what the new penalty is, but it points out how far we've gone. Some say that that penalty can be up there now five hundred dollars six months in jail. But of course all this stuff has to be challenged in court. But the reason they're bow it is because of John. I hope you'll tell us or about another person who used to beg people
to come to pray here. But why are we that? Why are we going investments because the situation is so bad, you know, we want to see Republicans and Democrats turned. I'm like used to Steve. I got very bothered three years ago when all Republicans and a group of eight Democrats voted against thirty five million Americans and saying no, they're raising the minimum wage at fifteen dollars an hour. It was just ridiculous considering the hurt and the pain
that people are in. So why would clergy put on their investments to make sure people know we're not there just as individuals, but we're doing ministry. We're giving the nation the pastoral care that it needs at this moment and the prophetic challenge that it needs at this moment. Why would they do that? Why would they Because to do less than that, to say nothing, would be a
form of religious malpractice. Democracy democratic malpractice. I don't mean Democrats of the party because right now, I think Steve, you and I have talked about this. We're not just in a this is not just a crisis of political parties. This is a crisis of civilization, This is a crisis
of humanity. If we claim that America has the greatest economic power in this world, the greatest military power, and the greatest imprint on the CLNT, this country goes that direction where the main decision about policies we make is how a few will get more and how those who are trying to make it will get less. If that's the way that we go, without any regret, without any resistance, what happens to the rest of civilization and society itself.
This is a borrow moment. This is a gut check moment for this country.
I'm just going to say quickly, in any movement, the point of direct action is to expose right, to shine a light and help people see what's really happening. And for far too long a political movement in this country has actually used Christianity. Sociologists call this Christian nationalism these days, but has tried to use Christianity to really prop up
extremism in politics. And what Bishop Barber was referencing is that you know, the folks who were leading the Congress right now, many of them are tied to these Christian nationalist organizations that for years have invited their supporters to come to the rotunda, and a guy named David Barton has stood in there and told them stories he's largely made up about how this has been a kind of sacred space and that you know, they need to be
able to worship there and pray. But when people who disagree with them, people who challenge their abuse of power, want to come and pray, then all of a sudden, religious freedom is out the window and there's a threat of the rest. So that's why we have to pray. Because of course the prayers of the cries of people are being heard by pastors, they have to lift those
to God. But we have to pray in public because it's an important part of our vocation to make those prayers known not only to God but to the people in power.
I had a conversation with you, Jonathan that left an impression, and you talked about your devotion to the doctrine of nonviolence and talked about your commitment to it, talked about if necessary, and it was not a frivolous comment about laying down your life. And I see some of the comments rolling below, and there will be a moment that comes later this summer, I feel for sure, but it's coming.
I can't tell you what day of the week, but there's going to be a moment when a massive Americans are facing a massive uniforms and those uniforms will lower weapons at peaceful protesters on the orders of the state. I don't have a doubt in my mind about that. And the question is for those who will be in the front row, close to the barrels of the rifle, and I know that you will, proverbially, in any instance
be one of those people. I think about Lewis, and we think about the Edmund Pettis Bridge, and go to the Edmund Pettis Bridge and walk across it in a group or walk across it alone. When John Lewis did it with peaceful people, they were walking into the devil's teeth. They were walking into death, and they faced it. And John Lewis almost lost his life there that day.
He did not.
But when we think about what's coming, how do you model courage for people? Arc of the that is that minor. Yours is saying it's mine that the moral arc of the universe is long. We would have agreed with that right, and it bends towards it, It bends towards justice. You know, to what Bishop Barber's mom said, to what Bishop Barber's mom said about h I understand that I was frozen.
So I'll try to I'll try to get this, to get this out clearly what Bishop Barber's mom said at ninety one, which is that I just never thought that you'd have to refight this fight right, this idea that the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice, and now all of that is in doubt. What do you say to peopleeople who are afraid, who sense the the stakes are high, who are looking to
find their courage in this moment. And what I tell people is that, you know, there's an old definition of courage. It's not about not being afraid. It's about recognizing there's something more important than your fear right that helps you take that step off the first line.
You know, John John Lewis, who you mentioned, was a student of Jim Lawson. Bishop Berber and I are also students of Jim Lawson. Many people who who've learned the tradition of non violence in this country know that the commitment to meet violence with non violence is ultimately.
We have frozen ass here that I am not frozen right now.
You're coming through a mind and hear me.
Okay, I got you back, Jonathan, can you dear me? I got you Bishop. There we go.
I was.
I was saying that the conviction that that nonviolence is the right response to violence is is is a conviction that it's actually more powerful, that it taps into, uh the fundamental reality of who we are and what truth is in the world, and what people who practice that know is that there is inside you know, all of us, you know, things that will won't make us want to
turn away, And so we have to train ourselves. Then we have to be part of a community that's committed to this kind of It's not that you know, individuals are going to rise up in some sort of you know,
heroic effort. The sit in movement was led by people who had practiced, who had you know, with people who they knew and trusted, had practiced playing the roles of you know, the people who would knock you off the stool, and rather than get up and fight back, who would sit back and continue to focus on the goal, not just of staying there, but of ultimately transforming the people
who were committing the violence against them. And I think that hope that even people who have been deeply twisted and really removed from their humanity by evil and by evil systems can in fact be redeemed because at the route and part of every one of us is the humanity that was stamped on to us by our creator, and no matter how depraved we might be, we don't
lose that. I think that's the core conviction of non violence, and so we need to be in communities where we're spending time getting to know that humanity of one another and practicing how we might use the power of nonviolence to resist the evil that's going to happen. Because I'll say this, the administration and autocratic regimes like the one
we're dealing with right now, they want violence. They want there to be a violent response in public so that they can use that to justify the militarization of police and even you know, putting troops on the ground. In the United States, they would very much like that. And it's it's our job as a movement to prepare the kind of discipline that will be needed in order to use nonviolence to expose their violence so that everyone can see it for what it is.
Well, that's a that's a powerful word. You just said there that I'm going to steal from you and repeat back. But a disciplined movement, a disciplined opposition, a fierce opposition, a moral opposition that is fierce and disciplined. An American is something to be reckoned with and.
Steve A discipline movement that's rooted in the greatest power in the universe. Scripture says, perfect love cast out fear. So the opposite of courage is not fear is the absence of what do you really love? What's worse? What? In other words, when you consider your life and while you're here with others, what is it that you love so much that's so important not just to you but to those around you, that you're willing to stand up for. So the discipline of the movement, you know, people didn't
just go out and just thought doing nonviolence. That there's processes to it. And not only that they knew what they were fighting for, right they also looked backwards to go forward. The Sanko fo bird flies forward looking backwards. So, for instance, right now, and this may sound to some people strained, but we have to stop saying this is the worst moment we've ever seen, because it's insulting to people.
That comes from people who stayed hopeful through two hundred and fifty years of slavery and the indigenous people in this country who who saw their lands and things robbed
and taken away. It is banned, but in a real sense we need right now to people need to be looking at those who had to make decisions, whether it's we have Lord Garrison, who was an abolitionist, white abolition who said when he was in jail on one occasion, William Lord Garrison was placed in this jail for preaching the damnable gospel that all men are creating equal I mean he wrote on So there's a sense in which
we have to know who we are. We talked about Lewis, but we have to remember that forty years before John Lewis ever came to Selma, black and white and Jewish people in Selma had been standing and fighting for voting rights. And one of the reasons John Lewis got hit so hard to dance because he was helping Ms. Boyington, who lived to be some ninety here, ninety nine years old, who was a teacher and all, but she was hit
on that day what we call bloody Sunday. And what also made Bloody Sunday so powerful is that the movement operated in such a way that Bloody Sunday didn't happen outside of the eyes of the camera. One of my professors said to me in history, he said, asked us why did the segregation sides come down, and we were young. We all say because people martials to them. He said no, we said, yesterd is No, That's not the only reason.
He said. Part of the strategy was to embarrass the leadership of the greedy means spirit of leadership of America on the world stage, because America would often go to other countries and chastise them. But when those when the world saw in America people having dogs turned on there and their rights being violated, it caused a form of global embarrassment and forced a new conversation and consideration about who we are and what we're doing, and why things
have to shift. So I believe, like you, I think there are two possibilities. The one possibility is that folk can just get angry and go off and just just do any and everything, which could be very, very detrimental, and as Jonathan said, is what they want Trump wants.
The other is discipline, strong, courageous, fears studied movement with the clear demands, clear articulation, letting people know we're not just fighting an individual, because in a sense, if one individual, let's just say, was in peace and put out of office, I know that that would not stop what's happening now, it would not stop the level in witch Maga and the extremist forces. So we have to be very clear
about what is going on and what we're fighting. But I do agree with you and that that the constant what they called one hundred days of under and attacking of people is not going to serve to discourage people.
It's actually going to serve to embolden people. And one of the things Howard Thurmann said that we need to hear right now, he said, study very clearly the tools and the energy and the effort and the strategies that your adversary has to use or they think they have to use to defeat you, and therein you'll find your strength. In other words, if you have to do all of this, you got to chieat in elections, you have to shut down justice departments, you have to try to take over
the now. If you think about all the things they're attempting to do, that also says how strong the forces of justice if we come together, if we mold together. You know right now in this country. The interesting than Steve is that the very people that will be hurt the most by say, the economic policies of extremism, which are poor and lowell, is actually the same group where you have the greatest possibility to expand the electric that could fundamentally shift outcomes of election.
Bishop, we got we're coming up on the hour, and I do want to before I let you go. I cannot let you go before you tell three thousand, three hundred people with us, and many more who will watch later the story that I have shared a couple times now, but I heard it from you, and it's the story of Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman in the aftermath of Frederick Douglas's depression, in the math the dread Scott decision, and when Harriet Tubman sees the depression in her friend
and she says, Frederick is God dead. I would love for you to share that. Before I do turn it over to Bishop Barbara, I want to thank Jonathan, Minister Jonathan, I want to thank Bishop Barber, and I want to thank all of you for joining us. One of the things I want to say about Bishop Barber and Jonathan, they're also brilliant political strategists who are deeply in touch
with the people in the country. And when we next get together, we're going to talk about the strategy of building a black white coalition in all fifty these states of Americans of good faith, people of deep faith, people of no faith at all, in a great moral moment, into a force that is going to make this country better.
And so when you think about why things happen and the links of events that none of us can see clearly because they haven't happened yet, and where we have to wrestle with our doubt and our faith and confront our fear, we have to appreciate that we're not alone, and that the greatest people that we revere through history walked in that doubt and walked in that fear, and walked in in those moments, just like we are in
their own time and in their own way. And so if I could get you to tell that story, Bishop Barber, I know it will inspire many thousands of people tonight like it did me. And then we'll have you all back soon, and we're working on some things together that we'll share with all of you soon. But understand, the aggressor always has the advantage of the first mover in
any type of fight. The moral side of the fight is always the peaceful side of the fight, and so that side always has to react off of its backfoot to aggression. But now that the fight is joined, and you take full stock everybody the destruction of Elon Musk's companies that have resulted from his aggressions, the cowtow that Donald Trump has made this night in defeat to the Chinese with his trade war. It is not the case that Donald Trump is winning. No clear Eide analysis would
support that conclusion. The clear Eyd analysis supports the conclusion that suffering in damage and a morality that was all necessary is coming, and we're gonna have to lift up a lot of people. But I feel that the overall outcome of this fight has never been in doubt. The consequences of it are in doubt. But if I could turn it over to you, Bishop, and what an honor it is to be with both of you tonight, two of the finest men this country has in it. Thank you both.
Thank you, Steve, and thank you for your tremendous voice and clarity. I'm going to do like you and steal that last part from you about it. The outcome is never in doubt, but the consequences, and we must work to make sure that the consequences are less than they would be if we don't stand up and challenge yeah, or less because we stood up, because the consequences will
be deep. We're not just trying to get back to normally, to just get back to what we were before this election, because even going into this, eighty seven million people are uninsured or uninsured. One hundred and forty million people were poor and or lower age in this country. I won't go through all the numbers, but they are numbers that say to us we have work to do, not just to stop what is happening, but to also to climb hot to a higher and a deeper, higher place, and
to lift all humanity not just something. This is not just about stopping a moment in history and then leaving things that Traderick Douglas knew that born a slave escaped from slavery, and in and around the eighteen fifties, a decision was made to challenge the rights, the fundamental rights of black people, just the right itself there was a black person to even having the right under the law for him to be respected, and there was a situation as it related to where people sat in the cars
of trains. Dred Scott, a very bright skinned man, chose to challenge what was happening and the separation that was happening to a black people. And they went to court, and the Supreme Court justice was an advocate of slavery, and so were most of the Supreme Court justice at that moment, and they decided basically that a black man had no rights that the country or a white man ever had to respect. When Frederick Douglas got wind of this,
along with the abolition movement, they were floored. This is this is eleven years, twelve years before the Civil War, I mean, excuse me, nine years. They were floored. They basically said this, that's this Supreme Court has said, we have no legs, no legsis stand on. And he went into a funk, a crisis of existence, what would have happened to all of his work? What would have happened,
What would happen to the abolitionist's work? And the story is told that he's in Pennsylvania, I think Philadelphia, and so journal Truth actually sees him sitting somewhere with his head in his hand, this great orator, this lion, this man.
Who learned.
How to read, and was talked by some of the best people up in New Bedford, up in the near up in Massachusetts and New Boston, and she screamed the story that says across that room, Frederick is God dead? Just a question? But she knew that for Frederick, God was the God of justice, of freedom, of transformation, of redemtion, of resurrection. And the traderic was having a crisis of faith, morality,
and consciousness. He had to answer that question, and they asked up to that question would determine what he would do. And Frederick knew at that moment that what he believed the divine source of the universe was eternal, could not die, and that source was on the side of justice and love and truth and freedom. And it is said that he got up and contact the Diabolition Society, one of them and said, I need to speak in two or
three weeks. Give me time, and he went and began to write and prepare a disciplined, fierce response to the Dredge God decision. The story concludes by saying that when Frederick got up to do that teacher, it was about an hour long, and interestingly, Steve he takes the first thirty to forty minutes and talked about how bad things are. He owns people's fear and people struggles, and then tore
the end. Predi Decta says, but as monstrous as this decision is, and with all of the government seemingly against us, the judicial, the legislative executive against us, I we can receive this decision with a cheerful spirit because history is studied with studied with proof that all the efforts to alli the abolition and freedom movement in this country has
only served to embolden and intensify its agitation. Could it be that the actions of this court is a necessary link in the chain of events to lead to the downfall of slavery itself? He reshaped, reshaped his narrative, and and re committed himself to the work of abolitionists along with other black and white abolitionists throughout the country. Could it be, Steve, could it be that this moment that we're seeing all this gut check moment is a necessary
link because it's been there under the surface. But could it be that it's now all brought to the surface. So and it may be a necessary link in a chain of events to wake everybody up. To wake everybody up, because this could be the moment that is the chain of events to bring down this kind of extremism, set people free from it, redeem people from it, and give America a fresh opportunity to seek to be a more perfect union and to have the third reconstruction that we so badly needed for so long.
Bishop Barber, Minister Jonathan, and all of you. Thank you. I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning. I invite you to join this community where I promise to be honest, blunt and direct about what is happening in this country. America is in crisis. Follow and subscribe to this channel and on substack. Thank you.