Bishop Barber national sermon: Voting for democracy is imperative

Moral, faith leader Bishop William J. Barber II to deliver national sermon on Sunday: ‘If we ever needed to vote for democracy we sure need to vote now’

Sermon comes on anniversaries of Emmett Till murder, 1963 March on Washington

On the anniversaries of the death of Emmett Till in 1955 – whose vicious murder spawned a movement – and of the 1963 March on Washington, Bishop William J. Barber II will deliver a national sermon on “if we ever needed to vote for democracy, we sure need to vote now.’”

Bishop Barber, president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, will speak from the pulpit at Greenleaf Christian Christian (Disciples of Christ) at 10 a.m. ET Sunday (Aug. 28). Bishop Barber is pastor of Greenleaf.

Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights and Social Justice and co-chair of the PPC:NCMR,  also will speak at Greenleaf.

The sermon will be live streamed here.

“Democracy is on the ballot because voting rights are on the ballot; the need for living wages is on the ballot; the need for healthcare and protecting the climate are on the ballot,” Bishop Barber said. “Where this nation stands on the war economy, ecological devastation and religious nationalism is on the ballot. Each of these realities is created by policy or changed by policy, and policy can only be changed when people  fully engage in democracy.”

The sermon comes as Repairers of the Breach begins a mobilizing and organizing voting tour of North Carolina’s 14 congressional districts. And two days after the sermon, on Tuesday, Aug. 30, the PPC:NCMR will launch a drive to reach over 5 million poor and low-income voters focused on 15 states.

Poor and low-income people do have the power at the ballot box to change the nation’s trajectory, as a study that the PPC:NCMR released last year shows.

The study, titled “Waking the Sleeping Giant: Low-Income Voters and the 2020 Elections.” showed that of the 158 million people who voted in 2020, over 50 million – or nearly one-third -- were low-income, meaning they have an estimated annual income of under $50,000. The 2020 presidential elections saw the highest voter turnout in U.S. election history, including among low-income voters.

“This cuts against common misperceptions that poor and low-income people are apathetic about politics or inconsequential to electoral outcomes,” the study’s executive summary reads.

Emmett Till, a Black teen visiting relatives in Mississippi, was 14 years old when he was abducted, tortured and lynched on Aug. 28, 1955, for somehow “offending” a white woman. His killers, who included the husband of the white woman, were exonerated. His mother held an open-casket service, not only exposing her son’s mutilated body to the world, but also exposing the realities of the nation’s racism.

Eight years later, on Aug. 28, 1963, about 250,000 people attended the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream Speech.”