Meet the Preacher Behind Moral Mondays - Mother Jones
Barber says his emphasis on morality is inspired by his predecessors in the civil rights movement. "They first had to win the moral high ground, and they had to capture the attention and consciousness of the nation," he explains. "When those two things came together, it gave space for people like Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was a segregationist, to step out of his normal pattern of politics into a new way." Barber says that Moral Mondays' broad appeal is reflected in state Republicans' sagging popularity: A February poll found that just 36 percent of North Carolina voters approved of Gov. Pat McCrory's job performance; 28 percent approved of the General Assembly's.
With North Carolina Democrats still in disarray following their drubbing in 2012, some progressives are looking to Barber to lead them out of the wilderness. "It's our job to take this energy and turn it into reality at the polls," says Democratic Party chairman Randy Voller.
But to Barber, the movement's success is not tied to the ballot box. Rather, it's in moments like the cold Saturday morning in February when tens of thousands of people flooded the streets of the capital. Black, white, gay, and straight, they came from churches and synagogues wearing rainbow flags for marriage equality, pink caps for Planned Parenthood, and stickers reading "North Carolina: First in Teacher Flight." When it was Barber's turn to speak, the crowd fell silent.
"Make no mistake—this is no mere hyperventilation or partisan pouting," he intoned, his voice rising and breaking. "This is a fight for the future and soul of our state. It doesn't matter what the critics call us…They can deride us, they can try to deflect from the issue. And we understand that, because they can't debate us on the issue. They can't make their case on moral and constitutional grounds."
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/04/william-barber-moral-monday-north-carolina