Allison Anglim '16
For 29 years, Siena College has hosted The Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King Lecture Series on Race and Nonviolent Social Change. This lecture series was established on Siena’s campus in 1988 to preserve the legacy of nonviolent human rights movements, which were exemplified through the lives of these two historical activists. This lecture series brings to light societal issues concerning social change.
Established public speaker, author, teacher and nonviolent activist, Reverend Dr. William Barber II, joined the Siena and Capital Region community in the Sarazen Student Union to speak about his dedication to a greater social change. His lecture titled “Moral Dissenters are a Necessity for the Destiny: Choosing a Path to Higher Ground” challenged those in attendance to make a greater change in society and move forward together.
Rev. Barber’s Forward Together Moral Movement, also known as “Moral Mondays”, has formed an alliance with more than 200 progressive organizations in North Carolina and has been on the forefront of justice work in the state, inspiring the organization of justice work on a national level. This movement is a multi-racial, multi-generational movement that focuses on battling immoral and extreme policies that have been adopted by the governor and state legislature, including cuts on public education, Medicaid and unemployment benefits.
“We’ve got to have a moral agenda," said Rev. Barber. “I think that the moral agenda oughta’ be something like this: insuring economic sustainability, labor rights and living wages, education equality for every child and access, healthcare for all, eventually getting to universal healthcare and women’s health and environmental justice and social security, oughta’ be a moral agenda.”
“The MLK lecture brings us back time and time again to issues that make Siena College the great school that it is. By bringing in great speakers such as Dr. Barber, we get a chance to reconnect with the social and ethical issues that should be the proper preoccupation of Saints”, said Robert Matthews ’18. “Dr. Barber was perfect for the lecture series, shedding new light on the role language and history have in times of political revolution and social change.”
Rev. Barber’s dedication to serving the community is long-standing. He is the Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina and serves as President of the North Carolina NAACP. He has also served as the Executive Director of the North Carolina Human Relations Commission and has taught at Duke Divinity School, North Carolina Central University and North Carolina Wesleyan College. In addition to being a Pastor, social change activist, executive director and teacher, Rev. Barber is also an author. He has written three books: Forward Together: A Moral Vision for the Nation, Preaching Through Unexpected Pain, and The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics and the Rise of a New Justice Movement.
In his concluding comments Rev. Barber said, “More people die every year from low income and poverty and low education than die every year from cancer, heart attack and stroke. This is a moral issue and national disgrace that there are 14.7 million poor children and 6.5 million extremely poor children over 100 years after the end of slavery.”
He believes that we all have to act as “moral dissenters” and enforce morally correct change in our community and around the world.
