Rev. William Barber On The New Civil Rights Movement

29th annual all People's breakfast was held this morning in Balboa Park to honor the legacy of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. The keynote speaker was Reverend William Barber like Doctor King was was a minister and activist. Reverend Barber leads the civil rights alliance known as moral Monday. He is the president of the NAACP in North Carolina and you may remember him from his speech when he called on Americans to become moral defibrillators. I am honored to be here with you in San Diego I understand that this was a night change. Can you tell us what this was? I reflected heavily on 19 67 this is when they were looking at the continuing struggles of racism class and materialism looking at the burgeoning campaigns in the civil rights movement. They stood up and said silence is betrayal. They stood up and called for more revolutionary baggage and he took all kinds of hits from the union community. There comes a time of moral people that make decisions that are not political or popular my subject today was standing down is not an option. We cannot be overwhelmed this section says there committed to turning things back. They seem our leaders stand up and it is moral agencies -- the Stadium projection and have to stand back. They are justice and president -- prejudice. How do you feel that the message needs to change now to really hit home. What we have done is frame this message around moral agenda the matter who is in office Stan voting rights and border protection and we have the worst voter suppression we have seen since the dames of Jim Crow the first general election without protection of voting rights we will have a filibuster basically in Congress for more than 1200 days longer than Strom Thurmond filibustered and 57. After Stan healthcare for all the environment. We cannot stand down when Congress people who got elected and have the best healthcare in the world is the got elected not to turn around from the people who elected them. We have to stand for criminal justice and equal protection regardless of race or color or creed. Systemic racism is still real. We are talking about putting an attorney general over the Department of Justice who has fought against voting rights and applauded this decision and is against the LGBTQ community and has a contempt for the 15th and 14th amendments the very amendments he would have to protect. We have to stand against the. He let a demonstration last week before the hearings for the sessions. You know so many others are the moral leaders. Some things are not about left and right it's about right versus wrong we have a level of narcissism that we see coming from the Oval Office -- I think John Lewis is exactly right when he said that it was a legitimate. Not just because of the hacking I would expand it because of the way that we had hundred 60 Atlas voting site and predominantly black communities this year than we had in 2012 we had all of this voter suppression we had a candidate that Eli and the candidate is illegitimate -- their restriction and targeting Muslims. -- I understand that you have called President-elect Trump is misguided later suggesting that there is some misguided and is there and hitting somebody hit you disagree with greatly. You do not -- when you think about somebody who has spread hate and started out with what's going on with the apartment we have a candidate not just him members of the Congress who are the extremists who have picked up the southern strategy and basically from 1968 which split black and white people using race and economic fears who basically said electors and we will take your health care and we will deny you living rages -- wages Emma will undercut you and we will suppress the right to vote and make sure anybody can get a gun quicker than they can register to vote that is not about hate that's about we love this country. [Indiscernible] he was not hated him he was critiquing him because he loved him and loved the country and love has to have truth and justice in order to make it love. In the one minute we have left to get the California has a particular responsibility of preserving some things that you believe may be challenged? I think that we are going to have to do like Joan Baez did and others back in the 60s. We need Californians to come South because if you can control the electoral vote and the members of the United Senate -- if you change the South registered 30% of African-American voters you get the poor Whites and Blacks to see that they are allies not enmities -- enemies and work together to change the nation. I'm sorry. I just want to thank you so much for joining us and for your impassioned speech this morning at the all People's breakfast. Take care God bless you. That was William Barber who was the keynote speaker in honor of Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. this morning in San Diego.