National

Moral Monday Leader Inspires Protests, Arrests and Action

Published

11 years ago

July 27, 2015

In this May 19, 2014 photo, demonstrators follow Rev. William Barber, right, president of the state chapter of the NAACP and architect of the protests known as “Moral Monday,” into the Legislative Building during a Moral Monday protest in Raleigh, N.C. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome)

Martha Waggoner, ASSOCIATED PRESS

GOLDSBORO, N.C. (AP) — The Rev. William Barber walks gingerly with a cane, in a hunched-over posture, yet here he is on a recent Monday, leading 3,500 protesters on a downtown street.

He says God must have a sense of humor to call on a man who has such difficulty walking to lead the Moral Monday protests that began in North Carolina two years ago.

Barber’s speeches and his throwback tactics — in vogue again following several deaths of black men at the hands of police — draw comparisons to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. More than 1,000 demonstrators have been arrested for civil disobedience in North Carolina since Barber, president of the state NAACP, started the legislative protests.

The demonstrations have spread to at least half a dozen other states and given him minor celebrity status. Supporters wear “I went to jail with Rev. Barber” buttons. Barber has been jailed five times himself.

“What I know is what we are in is a time when we can’t afford to be silent,” Barber said, perched against a tall stool in his office at his church in Goldsboro. “We are battling for the soul and consciousness of this country.”

The protests target conservative politics and Republicans, who took control of the North Carolina Statehouse and governor’s office in 2013, and cover everything from redistricting to labor laws to women’s rights, gay rights and the environment. Moral Mondays are the legislative protest piece of the broader Forward Together movement led by the NAACP, which is in court over the state’s new voting law and will be back in court next month to challenge redistricting.

Detractors accuse Barber of grandstanding or say he is continuously repeating himself and not worth their time. A former state senator once called his movement “Moron Monday.”

His supporters say his leadership is reminiscent of both King and Ella Baker, who helped form the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1960.

“I think he’s tremendously courageous,” said Eddie Glaude Jr., a religion and African-American studies professor at Princeton University. “He’s concerned about the state of black America, the state of brown America. He’s concerned about the LGBTQ community. He’s concerned about the most marginalized.”

Scholar and civil rights activist Cornel West, who is friends with Barber, describes him as “the only King-like figure we have in the country right now.”

“I have just been overwhelmed by his intellectual and spiritual power,” West said.

To understand Barber’s desire to help the disenfranchised is to know his father’s influence. Almost every story Barber tells somehow references Buster Barber, who would point to Jesus’ first sermon, when he said he had been anointed “to proclaim good news to the poor.”

“And my father was very clear that to be Christian, to follow Jesus is to be concerned about the weightier matters of the law, of justice and mercy,” Barber said.

He was 4 years old when his parents returned from Indianapolis to his father’s roots in eastern North Carolina, called there by local leaders who wanted their help with desegregating the schools. His father, now deceased, was an educator and minister, and his 81-year-old mother has worked as a secretary in schools.

Students once called his mother the n-word, Barber said; now their children and grandchildren call her Mother Barber.

He took his parents’ lessons about equality to heart, becoming the first black student elected alone as student body president of Plymouth High school; previously, a white student and a black student had shared the position. He understood the value of education and got a doctoral degree.

He can speak thoughtfully and quietly, quoting the Bible, the Constitution and poets, or he can jump and shout, and he often does during speeches.

Willie Jennings, a professor at Duke University, is one of Barber’s closest friends. They got to know each other when Barber was getting his master’s degree in divinity at Duke and Jennings was a doctoral student.

“William has, for many years, even before Moral Monday, he has always spoken to people with power, whether they be political figures, military,” Jennings said. “He has always spoken to them and challenged them to give account of how what they do will help poor people.”

Poverty wasn’t merely a lesson in the Barber household; it was a part of the family’s life. His mother, Eleanor, recalls when Billy — his nickname — was in sixth grade and came home in tears because other children were making fun of his shoes. They were called “bobos” — off-brand versions of then-popular Chuck Taylor sneaker by Converse.

The Chuck Taylors “screeched” as they gripped the basketball court. The bobos just slid out from under you, Barber said.

Barber’s paying job is as minister of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro. The NAACP doesn’t pay him for his work as state chapter president or as chair of the political action committee of the organization’s national board. He has no set speaker’s fee, although he sometimes gets paid for speeches. He also will talk to groups that can’t afford anything but his transportation.

He and his wife have five children; because of death threats, he shields them from reporters.

His difficulty walking isn’t the result of his weight — he’s lost 150 pounds in recent years and is trying to lose more — but of an inflammatory disease that also causes a bend in his neck that gives him that hunched-over appearance.

Among Barber’s supporters is Leslie Boyd, 62, of Asheville. She has been arrested twice and estimates that she’s attended about 80 percent of Moral Monday events. Her impetus is the death of her son, who was 33 when he died of colon cancer in 2008. He might have survived if insurance has allowed him to have a colonoscopy every year, she said.

“He just struck me as somebody who was going in the right direction, and I wanted to go with him,” she said of Barber. “He’s an amazing leader. He’s just a wonderful human being. … He stands up and speaks out where he sees things that are wrong.”

The GOP leadership and Barber get under each other’s skin more than either lets on. The best-known criticism of Barber came two years ago, just after the Moral Monday protests had started, from then-Sen. Thom Goolsby, who wrote a column referring to the movement as “Moron Mondays.”

More recently, state Republican Party leaders set up a website accusing Barber of taking money from unions. Barber does speak to unions and supports their efforts.

Two GOP leaders declined to be interviewed about Barber. A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger wrote that Barber “has been making the same claims for years now — and this point in the legislative session, we simply don’t have time to respond.”

Barber resists calls to raise his national profile, believing change in the country starts in the South, where his parents brought him more than 40 years ago to fight segregation. He’ll stay in North Carolina and fight, just as they did.

“We can overcome the crippling realities of our current moment because when you come together, things can be changed,” he said. “This kind of prophetic hope is not the kind that sets you to peace; it’s the kind that stirs you to action.”

___

Associated Press writer Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia contributed to this report.

___

Martha Waggoner can be reached at http://twitter.com/mjwaggonernc.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

###

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Mayor Barbara Lee Holds Special State of the City Address in Deep East Oakland

In partnership with Rise East and the 40×40 Council, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee held a special 2026 State of the City East Oakland community conversation on Oct. 14. The purpose of bringing a State of the City address directly to the community was to celebrate East Oakland, highli

Published

5 days ago

October 19, 2026

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Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee, left. moderated a community chat with (l.to r.) Selena Wilson, CEO of the East Oakland Youth Development Center; Carolyn “CJ” Johnson, CEO of the Black Cultural Zone; Dr. Noha Aboelata, CEO of Roots Health Center and Greg Hodge, CEO of the Brotherhood of Elders.

By Special to The Post

In partnership with Rise East and the 40×40 Council, Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee held a special 2026 State of the City East Oakland community conversation on Oct. 14.

The purpose of bringing a State of the City address directly to the community was to celebrate East Oakland, highlight the work underway, and look ahead to what neighbors, local businesses, youth, funders, community organizations, and partners can accomplish together.

Held at the Roots Community Health/Parker Elementary School Campus at 7929 Ney Ave., the event was emceed by special guest Mark Curry, Oakland native, comedian, and actor.

Lee shared how Rise East and the 40×40 Council have brought together the knowledge, relationships, and resources of people and organizations committed to East Oakland.

Residents bring lived experience, community organizations bring trusted relationships and philanthropy, and businesses bring resources and opportunity, she said, then turned to the government’s role: public investment, services and policy.

But, Lee intoned, City Hall has a responsibility to help connect those efforts.

“I am committed to listening to residents, working across departments and sectors, and helping open doors to opportunity. We must connect neighborhood priorities to the decisions we make about housing, economic development, safety, health and our young people.

City Hall “must be accountable for the results,” Lee said. “The measure of success is what families experience: greater stability, more opportunity and a stronger sense that they belong and have a future here.

“Tonight is an opportunity to listen to the leaders doing this work, learn what is making a difference and identify where we can do more together,” the mayor said.

Lee went on to moderate a ‘fireside chat’ on the theme: Building Oakland’s Future Together — From Neighborhood Investment to Community Empowerment with:

Selena Wilson, CEO, East Oakland Youth Development Center
Greg Hodge, CEO, Brotherhood of Elders
Carolyn “CJ” Johnson, CEO, Black Cultural Zone
Dr. Noha Aboelata, CEO, Roots Health Center

Mayor Barbara Lee’s media relations department provided this report.

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Black History

Practitioners of African Traditional Spirituality Offer Ancestral Reverence Ritual Oct. 31

The Council for Global Ancestral Reverence will host “Ancestral Souls Rising” from Oct. 31 to Nov. 2, featuring a three-day gathering of prayer and discussion. Led by elders and priests across the African diaspora, the seventh annual ritual honors those lost without traditional rites while addressing current social challenges. This year’s event connects ancestral wisdom with contemporary issues, including a two-day conversation inspired by Afro-Beat music focused on Black community solidarity and the sacred importance of voting. Read more for details on the ritual schedule and participants.

Published

5 days ago

October 19, 2026

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Oakland native Nedra Williams writes sacred symbols on the ground in San Leandro. Courtesy photo.

By Special to The Post

The Council for Global Ancestral Reverence (C4GAR), a group of elders who practice African traditional spirituality, will lead a three-day gathering of prayer and discussion from Oct. 31-Nov. 2.

Called ‘Ancestral Souls Rising,’ the council members and 21 priests will lead the prayers from many parts of the African diaspora: Africa, Portugal, and across the U.S. from Maryland to the Bay Area.

Now in its seventh year, the annual ritual began during the 2020 pandemic when hundreds of thousands of people died alone and were buried in mass graves without rites and rituals according to loved ones’ traditions.

This prayer event was and is intended to give peace to the departed and comfort for the living who still mourn. Each year, we gather names of new ancestors from living elders to elevate them into the “Great Hall of the Titans.”

In ensuing years, C4GAR added themes to the prayer gathering that referenced current events. In 2024, before the consequential presidential election, C4GAR called on people to vote, invoking the memory of Civil Rights Movement heroes and heroines like John Lewis, who urged “Good Trouble,” and Fannie Lou Hamer, who famously declared that she was “sick and tired of being sick and tired.”

The day of global Prayer on Oct. 31 will be followed by a two-day conversation inspired by “The Blueprint,” an Afro-Beat song by UyiosaEl, to write our new blueprint that supports solidarity and action in the Black community.

“Our elders have, for many generations, known the power of prayer, ritual and breath,” the council said in a statement.

It was and is their intention, then, to use the cultural wisdom, the gift of prayer “and the most sacred thing we have, our breath, to send energy into the world that invokes and honors our ancestors,” the council statement continued.

“Doing this creates a vibration that protects us and employs their ancient wisdom for the well-being of our communities,” the elders said.

The councilmembers, all over the age of 60, recognize that what is now history for so many was once their lived experience. And that history, those joys and sorrows, are now in their bodies.

To them, the uttered prayer and the sacred breath are oaths to an unfolding future that people can still shape.

The council members are Dr. Iyabeji Cathy Royal, Iyalocha Jennifer Dillard, Manbo Charlene Desir (Florida), Nana Sula Spirit (Louisiana), Baba Obafemi Feyemi, Ohen Nedra T. Williams, and Iyalocha Wanda Ravernell-Stewart Emeritus (Oakland).

This year, they also encourage everyone within their reach to VOTE because it is not only a secular and political act, but a sacred one. Remember, the ancestors were denied that right and died for it.

For tickets, go to:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/council-for-global-ancestral-reverence-presents-ancestral-souls-rising-26-tickets-2003127345814?aff=oddtdtcreator

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Community

It’s Time to Lose Weight Before the Holidays

Licensed internist Dr. H. Geoffrey Watson has joined gastroenterologist Dr. Ralph Peterson at Oakland’s MacArthur GI to address the rising obesity epidemic. With U.S. obesity rates reaching 42.4%, the clinic offers supervised weight-loss programs and screenings for fatty liver disease. Treatments include dietary counseling and various medications, such as GLP-1 receptor agonists, which regulate digestion and appetite. As certain populations continue to be disproportionately affected by chronic health conditions, medical experts are highlighting new tools available to help patients reach their goals before the holiday season. Read more.

Published

5 days ago

October 19, 2026

Post News Group

By Special to The Post

Dr. H. Geoffrey Watson, a licensed internist, has joined renowned gastroenterologist Dr. Ralph Peterson at MacArthur GI in Oakland to address obesity, provide supervised weight-loss programs including GLP-1 therapy, and screen for and treat fatty liver disease.

The Obesity Epidemic

Obesity is associated with numerous chronic health problems, including hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, sleep apnea, asthma, depression, joint disorders, fatty liver disease, and high cholesterol. Its causes include genetics, environment, stress, medication side effects, hormonal imbalances, and other factors.

Since 1999, the prevalence of obesity in the United States has risen from 30.5% to 42.4%. Childhood obesity rates are also climbing, with approximately 19.3% of children and adolescents now affected.

Measuring Obesity: Body Mass Index

Obesity is measured using a formula called the Body Mass Index (BMI). You can calculate your own BMI on most smartphones by searching “BMI calculator” and entering your height and weight. A BMI of 25 to 29.9 is classified as overweight, and a BMI of 30 or greater is classified as obese.

Populations Disproportionately Affected

Obesity affects certain populations at higher rates. Among U.S. adults, obesity prevalence is 49.9% in Black adults, 45.6% in Hispanic adults, 41.4% in White adults, and 16.1% in Asian adults.

Treatment Options

A variety of treatments are available for obesity, including dietary counseling, exercise programs, bariatric surgery, and anti-obesity medications.

Common oral medications include:

• Adipex (phentermine): A stimulant that works by suppressing appetite.

• Contrave (bupropion/naltrexone): A combination of an antidepressant and an anti-addiction medication that helps control appetite and cravings.

• Qsymia (phentermine/topiramate): A combination of a stimulant and an anti-seizure medication that reduces appetite and cravings.

GLP-1 Receptor Agonist Therapy

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists were originally approved to treat type 2 diabetes. GLP-1 is a hormone produced naturally by the body that regulates digestion, blood sugar, and appetite by communicating with GLP-1 receptor cells throughout the digestive tract. These medications reduce cravings, appetite, and food intake by influencing the hunger hormones ghrelin, which stimulates hunger, and leptin, which signals fullness.

What We Offer

Drs. Peterson and Watson provide FDA-approved tirzepatide injections, a GLP-1 receptor agonist medication indicated for weight management. Each patient receives a comprehensive history and physical examination to ensure the safety and appropriateness of the medication as part of an overall weight-loss protocol. Dr. Peterson also offers ultrasound screening for fatty liver disease.

We look forward to helping you reach your weight-loss goals and feel your best this holiday season.

H. Geoffrey Watson, M.D., runs the MacArthur GI Clinic at 10520 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA. He can be reached at (510) 562-7467.