A North Carolina pastor famous for decades of activism for progressive causes was arrested in the Capitol rotunda on Monday, less than a week after the formation of the Trump administration’s task force on anti-Christian bias at the Justice Department.
The arrest occurred Monday afternoon as Reverend William Barber and others were praying at the Capitol; earlier in the day, the reverend delivered a sermon on the Capitol steps and also delivered a Moral Monday address at the Supreme Court. First reported by Jack Jenkins of Religion News Service, photos showed Barber and others surrounded by US Capitol Police officers, including one wearing a “crime scene” vest.
Jenkins reported in a follow up tweet that Barber and two others were arrested at the scene. Others were cleared from the vicinity of the Rotunda, which is often open to tours and members of the public.
The Independent has reached out to Barber’s organization, Repairers of the Breach, and US Capitol Police for more information.
Barber’s Moral Monday campaigning stretches back more than a decade. A longtime progressive activist, Barber is leader of the Poor People’s Campaign and for years hosted weekly Moral Monday rallies and sermons around his home state where he spoke out in favor of policies including raising the minimum wage and support for labor rights.
During the Biden administration, he was part of a failed bid to press the administration to pass legislation protecting voting rights, especially in Republican-held states.
He has taken up opposition to the second Trump administration’s widespread federal funding cuts as a cause this year, as a groundswell of voter anger coalesces around service cuts to the Social Security Administration and threats that the upcoming GOP budget will include reductions to Medicaid, which covers many low-income Americans. Barber delivered a response to the president’s address to a joint session of Congress on Roland Martin’s Black Star network in March.
At a “Hands Off” day of action in Washington D.C. earlier in April, Barber also delivered a fiery address criticizing the agendas of the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress.
“When their foolish budget plans could remove 36 million people from healthcare and millions of poor, low-wage children from school lunch and refuse to raise wages for 14 million low-wage working American people from $7.25 to $16, we must pray, ‘God, give us the courage to stand!’” Barber said at the rally.
He then shouted to the crowd: “Take your hands of our Medicaid! Take your hands off our Medicare! Take your hands off our voting rights! Take your hands off our living wages!Take your hands off our public education! Take your hands off our off our lives!”
Donald Trump’s administration announced the formation of a “task force” at the Justice Department supposedly aimed at rooting out “anti-Christian policies” across the federal government. The group, chaired by Attorney General Pam Bondi, had its first meeting last week.
“As President Trump has stated, the Biden administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians while ignoring violent anti-Christian offenses,” Bondi claimed on Tuesday, according to Spectrum News.
In January, the president also pardoned Christian activists who invaded and blockaded entrances to abortion clinics in Washington state.
In a speech in Munich, Germany, in February, Vice President JD Vance criticized the arrest in Britain of a man who was praying silently close to an abortion clinic, claiming that his arrest constituted an attack on free speech. Adam Smith-Connor was convicted of breaching a safe zone after refusing requests to move on in the south coast city of Bournemouth and given a two-year conditional discharge. The safe zone bans any activity either in favor or or against abortion. It was designed to prevent harassment of women using the facility and staff working there.
