Poor People's Campaign

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In the Press

“Federal judge hears residents’ input on JXN Water’s work thus far”
Mississippi Today
July 14, 2023

“Jesse Jackson, William Barber arrested protesting filibuster and Manchin“
Religion News Service
June 23, 2021

“Juneteenth and Filibuster Fuel Fight for Democracy That Works for Everyone“
Common Dreams
June 23, 2021

“Have We Entered America’s Third Era of Reconstruction?”
The Nation
June 23, 2021

“President Biden pledges support for Rev. Barber’s campaign to end poverty“
Religion News Service
June 21, 2021

“Protesters Demand West Virginia Sen. Manchin End Opposition to Filibuster Reform, Voting Rights Bill”
Democracy Now!
June 15, 2021

“Hundreds protest Manchin’s opposition to voting law overhaul”
Associated Press
June 14, 2021

National Co-Chairs

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is the President & Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival; Bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries; Visiting Professor at Union Theological Seminary; Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church, Disciples of Christ in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and the author of three books: Revive Us Again: Vision and Action in Moral Organizing; The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and The Rise of a New Justice Movement; and Forward Together: A Moral Message For The Nation.

Rev. Dr. Barber is also the architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim with its Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General Assembly in 2013. These weekly actions drew tens of thousands of North Carolinians and other moral witnesses to the state legislature. More than 1,200 peaceful protesters were arrested, handcuffed and jailed. On September 12, 2016 Rev. Dr. Barber led a “Moral Day of Action,” the largest coordinated action on state capitals in U.S. history, calling for state governments to embrace a moral public policy agenda. On February 11, 2017, he led the largest moral march in North Carolina state history, with over 80,000 people calling on North Carolina’s elected officials to embrace a moral public policy agenda.

A highly sought after speaker, Rev. Dr. Barber has given keynote addresses at hundreds of national and state conferences, including the 2016 Democratic National Convention. He has spoken to a wide variety of audiences including national unions, fraternities and sororities, motorcycle organizations, drug dealer conferences, women’s groups, economic policy groups, voting rights advocates, LGBTQ equality and justice groups, environmental and criminal justice groups, small organizing committees of domestic workers, fast food workers, and national gatherings of Christians, Muslims, Jews, and other people of faith.

Rev. Dr. Barber served as president of the North Carolina NAACP, the largest state conference in the South, from 2006 – 2017 and currently sits on the National NAACP Board of Directors. A former Mel King Fellow at MIT, he is currently Visiting Professor of Public Theology and Activism at Union Theological Seminary and is a Senior Fellow at Auburn Seminary. Rev. Dr. Barber is regularly featured in media outlets such as MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, and The Nation Magazine, among others. He is the 2015 recipient of the Puffin Award and the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award, a 2018 MacArthur Foundation genius award recipient, and he is one of the 2019 recipients of the North Carolina Award, the state’s highest civilian honor.

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The Reverend Dr. Liz Theoharis is Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival with the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II that organized the largest and most expansive wave of nonviolent civil disobedience in US history. She is the Director of the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice at Union Theological Seminary.

She has spent over the past two decades organizing amongst the poor in the United States, working with and advising grassroots organizations with significant victories including the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the Vermont Workers Center, Domestic Workers United, the National Union of the Homeless and the Kensington Welfare Rights Union.

Liz received her BA in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania; her M.Div. from Union Theological Seminary in 2004 where she was the first William Sloane Coffin Scholar; and her PhD from Union in New Testament and Christian Origins. She has been published in Time Magazine, The Guardian, Sojourners, The Nation, The Christian Century, and others. In 2018, she gave “Building a Moral Movement” TEDtalk at TEDWomen. She was named one of the Politico 50 of “thinkers, doers and visionaries whose ideas are driving politics,” one of 11 Women Shaping the Church by Sojourners, the Women of Spirit recipient from the Presbyterian Church (USA), and Selma “Bridge” Award recipient in 2018.

Liz is the author of Always with Us?: What Jesus Really Said about the Poor (Eerdmans, 2017). She is co-author of Revive Us Again: Vision and Action in Moral Organizing (Beacon, 2018). Liz is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and teaches at Union Theological Seminary in New York City.

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Introducing the Poor People’s Campaign “Pain and Action” Video

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