Solomont Speaker Series: Bishop William J. Barber II

On April 13, 2023, Tisch College hosted a lecture and conversation with renowned orator, moral leader, civic rights activist and organizer, Bishop William J. Barber II, DMin, on organizing for multiracial democracy. Bishop Barber discussed individual and collective power to effect change on issues like systemic racism, economic injustice, mass incarceration, and climate change at a time of historic demographic transition.
The event was generously co-hosted by the University Chaplaincy and the Africana Center with support from the Political Science Department, the Tufts Democrats and the Civic Studies Program.
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Bishop William J. Barber II is a professor in the practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and founding director of the newly established Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. Dr. Barber served as president of the North Carolina NAACP from 2006-2017 and on the National NAACP Board of Directors from 2008-2020. He is the architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim in 2013 with its Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General Assembly. In 2015, he established Repairers of the Breach to train communities in moral movement building through the Moral Political Organizing Leadership Institute and Summit Trainings (MPOLIS). In 2018, he co-anchored the relaunch of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival- reviving the 1968 Poor People's Campaign organized by SCLS, under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., worker's rights movement, women's rights movement, religious leaders, and people of all races to fight poverty in the U.S. Bishop Barber is Pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in North Carolina NC, where he has preached for 30 years.