Bishop William J. Barber II, D. Min., who was escorted out of a screening of The Color Purple Tuesday after insisting on sitting in a chair he needs to help with a severe and disabling bone disease, will hold a press conference Friday with community supporters to address the incident.

Bishop William J. Barber II, Repairers of the Breach, and Florida Poor People’s Campaign will join with impacted people and hundreds of interracial, interfaith clergy members at a mass meeting Thursday to call out Gov. Ron DeSantis for deceiving the public about the policy violence he’s inflicted on people across Florida, including the state’s most poor.

“When extremist lawmakers in the North Carolina Senate voted to override the Governor’s veto on the abortion ban, they falsely claimed to do so in the name of preserving life. The truth is that there is nothing “pro-life” about denying reproductive rights to women who have been denied access to healthcare for a decade.

Dozens of diverse, interfaith clergy members, impacted persons, and advocates from across the state joined Bishop William J. Barber II and Repairers of the Breach at a press conference Friday at the General Assembly to condemn extremist legislators’ push for an extreme abortion ban in the state, calling it the latest example of their attack on our democracy and the state’s 4.7 million residents who are poor or low-income.

“Republican extremists in the North Carolina General Assembly are trying to pass an abortion ban that they say is ‘pro-life.’ But if they were serious about life, they would be addressing the fourth leading cause of death in the US today—poverty.