Pastoral Letter to America from social justice leader Rev. Barber echoed in Biden speech
The words of social justice leader Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II are being echoed by Joe Biden, the former vice president who spoke to the nation Tuesday.
“To paraphrase Rev. Barber: It’s the mourning when we find hope,” Biden said in a speech in Philadelphia. “It’s in the mourning when we find hope — when we mourn.”
Biden spoke after a third night of protests in Philadelphia over the death of George Floyd, whose dying words were recorded as a Minneapolis police officer held his knee on Floyd for almost nine minutes. He was quoting from the Pastoral Letter to the Nation, which Rev. Barber wrote and delivered in a national sermon on Sunday. Rev. Barber is president of Repairers of the Breach and the minister of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, North Carolina.
In that letter, Rev. Barber writes: “The hope is in the mourning and the screams, which make us want to rush from this place. There is a sense in which, right now, we must refuse to be comforted too quickly. Only if these screams and tears and protests shake the very conscience of this nation—and until there is real political and judicial repentance—can we hope for a better society on the other side of this.”
The link to Biden’s full speech is here and the link to his comment about Rev. Barber is here.
In addition, former President Obama recently included a quote from Rev. Barber for the Guardian on his foundation website.
“America must listen to its wounds,” Rev. Barber wrote in the May 30th column,“They will tell us where to look for hope.”
