William Barber has been described as “the closest person we have to MLK.” John Blake of CNN recently interviewed the leader of the Poor People’s Campaign. A taste:
Critics say Democrats are elitist and look down on working-class people. What do you say to that?
Neither party has done enough, and all of them dismiss poor and low-wage service people in different ways. The Republicans tend to say poverty and low wage is your own fault. And then they try to racialize poverty and make it like itâs a Black issue. When they talk about poverty, the first thing they do is show a Black woman with food stamps.
On the other side, Democrats think that they can just talk âmiddle class.â They donât have to say âpoverty.â They donât have to say âlow wages.â They fall in the trap of allowing poverty to be marginalized.
Democrats â I donât know if I would use the word elitism â they just havenât done what could have been done when they had the opportunity. I go back to the fact that the $15 (minimum wage) was a part of the Covid relief package. It was taken out of the package and it was allowed to be voted on individually but some so-called moderate Democrats said no to it at that time.
We have a deep moral problem in this country. Weâre just writing off a whole swath of people. We begged and pushed and marched and demanded that thereâd be a roundtable in the White House, bringing in poor, low-wage people from Appalachia and Alabama to face this issue. We said the Senate should have a vote on a living wage before the election and make people like (Vice President-elect) JD Vance vote and say where they stand right before the election so the American people could know. Thereâs not a battleground state where poor and low-wage people donât make up more than 40% of the electorate. Thereâs not a battleground state where if just 10% of poor, low-wage people were to vote around an agenda that they wouldnât fundamentally shift the outcome of the election.
There are people who say itâs a mistake to reduce Trumpâs victory to racism or sexism because large numbers of Latino men voted for Trump. What role do you think racism and sexism played in the election result?
Racism certainly is a part of it. But you got to go beyond just race because 66 million poor, low-wage folks are White, and they vote for policies that hurt them as well. You have to look at the level of chauvinism in the election. Weâve had two highly qualified women (Hillary Clinton in 2016; Harris in 2024), both better people (than Trump) in terms of character and policy, lose to Trump and the MAGA movement.
In North Carolina, you had a Democrat â the governor, the lieutenant governor, the superintendent of schools, the attorney general â win (in 2024). And yet the vice president loses in North Carolina. That is not an easy thing to solve. The votes went down, rather than up, for both candidates (Harris and Trump). We know that extremists love election numbers to be down. Thatâs where they flourish…
Do you still believe we could have a genuine multiracial democracy in America?
Oh, yes. I believe it. I think itâs hard work. Weâve had two attempts at reconstructing the country (Reconstruction in the 18th century and the civil rights movement of the 1950s and â60s). And remember: the reconstructionists didnât just quit or lose. People were beaten down, cheated and assassinated. But I believe in the possibility of a Third Reconstruction. Out all of this grief and struggle weâve seen, itâs going to cause a massive pushback. I know the history of folk who tend to wield injustice. They always go too far. And they end up producing their own resistance.
My word to progressives and Democrats is to not try to have a left or a right agenda. Have a moral agenda. Look at what issues are a violation of our deepest moral values. Lift from the bottom. Own the fact that the things we talk about â a living wage, health care â are highly popular in the public square.
Read the entire interview here.