Having Reverend Barber at the Democratic Convention was a high point. Thank you.

The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II (click here) is co-author of The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics and the Rise of a New Justice Movement, published in January 2016 by Beacon Press. In January 2016 he also began filing regular dispatches from the southern movement for racial justice for The Nation, resuming a role Martin Luther King Jr. once filled for the magazine.

Rev. Barber is the architect of the Forward Together Moral Monday Movement, president of the North Carolina NAACP and pastor of the Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Goldsboro. He is also president of Repairers of the Breach. He is the 215-2016 recipient of the Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship....

April 2, 2015
By Wesley Lowery

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) (click here) on Thursday afternoon signed into law a revised version of a controversial religious freedom bill, that included new language to clarify that businesses and service providers cannot use the legislation as a justification to discriminate based on a client’s sexual orientation.

The original Religious Freedom Restoration Act came under fire nationally, with critics contending that it could allow businesses to refuse to serve gay and lesbian patrons. Under scrutiny, Pence asked that the language of the bill be clarified, and lawmakers unveiled new language on Thursday morning that explicitly stated that no “provider…may deny service to anyone on basis of sexual orientation, race, religion or disability.”

In signing the revised bill, which was approved by the legislature on Thursday, Pence continued to argue that there had been a misunderstanding about the bill’s intent....