REPAIRERS OF THE BREACH:
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II
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Repairers of the Breach is a nonpartisan 501c3 tax exempt not-for-profit organization that seeks to build a moral agenda rooted in a framework that uplifts our deepest moral and constitutional values to redeem the heart and soul of our country. They challenge the position that the preeminent moral issues are prayer in public schools, abortion, and property rights. Instead, we declare that the moral public concerns of our faith traditions are how our society treats the poor, women, LGBTQ people, children, workers, immigrants, communities of color, and the sick--the people whom Jesus calls “the least of these.”
Repairers of the Breach was founded in 2015 by the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II as a way to organize, train, and work with a diverse school of prophets from every U.S. state and the District of Columbia. Based in Goldsboro, North Carolina, Repairers of the Breach works nationally to advance a moral agenda that uplifts our deepest constitutional and moral values of love, justice, and mercy. 
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BIOGRAPHY:
Rev Dr. William J. Barber, II
Born August 30, 1963, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II is an American Protestant minister and social activist. He is the president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach and co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. He also serves as a member of the national board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and is the chair of its legislative political action committee. From 2006 to 2017, Barber served as president of the NAACP's North Carolina state chapter, the largest in the Southern United States and the second-largest in the United States. He has pastored Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Goldsboro, North Carolina since 1993.
Beginning in April 2013, Barber led regular "Moral Mondays" civil-rights protests in North Carolina's state capital, Raleigh. The Wall Street Journal credited Barber's NAACP chapter with forming a coalition in 2007 named Historic Thousands on Jones Street People's Assembly, composed of 93 North Carolina advocacy groups. "With this changing demographic, we had to operate in coalition", Barber was quoted as saying. Historian and professor Timothy Tyson named Barber, "the most important progressive political leader in this state in generations", saying that he "built a statewide interracial fusion political coalition that has not been seriously attempted since 1900".
An article in the Michigan State Law Review, "Confronting Race: How a Confluence of Social Movements Convinced North Carolina to Go where the McCleskey Court Wouldn't" credits him with bringing together a statewide political coalition. He "has become as well known [in North Carolina] as [Governor] Pat McCrory and Republican leaders of the House and Senate", according to a 2013 Huffington Post profile of him. He traveled with NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous to meet with Georgia prison officials.
- In 2014, he founded Repairers of the Breach, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization "formed to educate and train religious and other leaders of faith who will pursue policies and organizational strategies for the good of the whole and to educate the public about connections between shared religious faith".
- In 2016, he delivered a speech at the Democratic National Convention; the address was described as rousing and was well received.
- On May 30, 2017, Barber was arrested after refusing to leave the North Carolina State Legislative Building during a protest over health care legislation. The following month, a state magistrate banned Barber and the other protesters from entering the Legislative Building. Barber and his lawyers contend that the ban is unconstitutional, because the state constitution guarantees citizens the right to assemble to communicate with their legislators.
- In May 2017, Barber announced he would step down from the state NAACP presidency to lead "a new 'Poor People's Campaign'", named Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for a Moral Revival in honor of the original 1968 campaign founded by Martin Luther King Jr.
- In July 2021, Barber called for a "season of nonviolent direct action" to bring attention to threats to democracy in the U.S.. He was arrested alongside hundreds of others in Washington, D.C. on August 2nd in a peaceful protest for voting rights and higher wages.
- In August 2022, Barber was a Keynote Speaker for the 2022 Teamsters National Black Caucus Educational Conference & Gala in New Orleans, LA.
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In 2017, drawing on the unfinished work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, which called for a “revolution of values,” Repairers of the Breach partnered with the Kairos Center for Religions, Rights, and Social Justice, and hundreds of local and national organizations, to launch the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. At the request of local community leaders, Repairers of the Breach organizers traveled to Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi, California and dozens of other states, sharing the work and lessons of the Forward Together Moral Movement and standing in solidarity with communities who were fighting against policy violence at the local and state level. These first dozen states would become a part of the founding State Coordinating Committees of the Poor People’s Campaign.
The Campaign challenges the five interlocking issues of systemic racism, systemic poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism and seeks to build an agenda rooted in love, justice, and a moral framework. Our social justice organizers work closely with community leaders in over thirty states to support local grassroots organizing and strengthen advocacy around national issues like poverty wages, voting rights, environmental racism, and our broader moral agenda. Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II serves as co-chair of the Campaign and the Repairers of the Breach team provides leadership, policy strategy, finance, media, cultural arts, and partnerships support to the Campaign.
The Campaign challenges the five interlocking issues of systemic racism, systemic poverty, the war economy, ecological devastation, and the distorted moral narrative of religious nationalism and seeks to build an agenda rooted in love, justice, and a moral framework. Our social justice organizers work closely with community leaders in over thirty states to support local grassroots organizing and strengthen advocacy around national issues like poverty wages, voting rights, environmental racism, and our broader moral agenda. Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II serves as co-chair of the Campaign and the Repairers of the Breach team provides leadership, policy strategy, finance, media, cultural arts, and partnerships support to the Campaign.
