In the global crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, public education about the symptoms of this disease is critical. When we recognize that something which impacts anyone of us can quickly impact all of us, we know everyone must learn the signs of what the disease looks like before it is too late.

As we watch public health officials at press conferences and on public service announcements, we have all learned that if you have fever, headaches and difficulty breathing, you cannot take those symptoms lightly. You must quarantine and be tested because these are not only the symptoms of COVID-19; they are also a sign that you could in fact be moving toward death.

53 years ago this past Saturday, on April 4th, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King stood in the Riverside Church in New York City and declared that there comes a time when silence is betrayal. He listed racism, poverty and militarism as three evils that were placing the United States of America and even the world in danger. 

As he delivered his sermon that night, he also said that any nation that puts more money and resources into its military than into social and economic uplift is approaching spiritual death. Dr. King did not say that such a nation was dead, but he named these as the symptoms of a nation approaching spiritual death. In these critical days when we have been made especially sensitive to the need to watch for symptoms, it is not just our physical bodies we must watch but also our body politic. 

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has named the symptoms of approaching spiritual and moral death in America right now. In this moment, it is essential that everyone in the nation know the symptoms. To fail to address them for any person or group is to risk the well-being of every American. Now is the time to treat these symptoms with the medicine of moral revival.

We cannot delay. We cannot succumb to those forces who say we must put off larger systemic concerns until this public health crisis has passed. No, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed America’s pandemic of poverty, and we must act together to address these underlying conditions before they do irreparable damage to our democracy.

Epidemics emerge along the fissures of our society, reflecting not only the biology of the infectious agent, but patterns of marginalization, exclusion and discrimination. The coronavirus pandemic is no exception. The United States has many open wounds rooted in decades of racist policies and the criminalization of the poor. COVID-19 has revealed deep failures and will reinforce existing health inequities unless we proactively turn our attention to the how we serve the poorest and most marginalized in our societies.

Well before our present crisis, the symptoms of greed and lies pointed to the reality that we were approaching spiritual and moral death. But now one germ has exposed our weakness. One germ had laid bare the vulnerability of inequality. One germ has shut down the world because we can’t bomb it out, we can’t lie it out, we can’t pay enough money to make it go away. And so, we must attend to the symptoms of a nation approaching spiritual death.

Before this present crisis, we had 140 million poor and low wealth people in the wealthiest nation in the world. 43% of this nation was living in poverty and low wealth, and because of this underlying condition, 700 people were already dying each day from poverty. 

We hear the reports that 200,000 people could die from COVID-19 and we are terrified because we know that could be any one of us or our loved ones. But the US is quickly racing toward to highest death rate in the world because the extreme inequality we have long tolerated in this nation creates underlying conditions that make us peculiarly susceptible to this disease. 

For 40 years in this nation, Republicans have racialized poverty while Democrats have tried to run from poverty, only wanting to talk about the middle class and working Americans, as if there were not millions of working poor people in this country. Prior to this pandemic we had millions upon millions of Americans without health insurance. Many states refused to even expand Medicaid. Furthermore, we saw outright racist attacks on the most fundamental aspect of a democracy: voting rights.  

Before the pandemic ever hit, these were the symptoms of a nation fast approaching a kind of spiritual and moral death.

The symptoms also included a refusal to address the climate crisis that is threatening the planet. 

We also found ourselves with a war economy budget that took 53 cents of every discretionary dollar and fed it to an already bloated and overgrown military budget while working people were being denied living wages and union rights.

And this was all happening alongside a religious nationalism that suggests the only moral issues in the public square are standing against a woman’s right to choose, being against gay people, and touting a twisted notion of religious freedom that is actually about using religion to discriminate.

READ: King’s Poor People’s Campaign Lives Again

All of these things we believe were signs of a nation approaching spiritual and moral death.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the symptoms worsened. As soon as it became clear that the president had lied when he said that the virus would quickly pass, the first move was to give Wall Street and corporations a record bailout. The very people who’ve wondered aloud how we would ever find the money to address the needs of poor and low wealth people suddenly realized overnight that a government can invest in anything it considers essential to its survival. This is a glaring sign of a nation approaching spiritual and moral death because the greed of Wall Street was placed above the lives of people. 

While the pandemic grew, more signs of an approaching spiritual death became evident. Last week, Congress passed a relief bill that left out millions of poor and low wealth people. People in our society who make $12,000 as an individual or $24,000 as a couple do not have to file taxes, but only tax filers got a one-time $1200 bail out in this relief bill. It’s another symptom that we are approaching spiritual death.

As tens of millions live under stay-at-home orders, we now call grocery workers, janitors in hospitals, fast food and other service workers “essential.” But we refuse to ensure their paid sick leave, we deny them living wages, and we do not guarantee them access to healthcare if and when they do get sick. It’s one of the underlying conditions this pandemic is exposing, and it is a symptom of this nation’s approaching spiritual death.

When we take a moment to pay attention, these symptoms are all around us. Masks that were 76 cents a piece 6 weeks ago are selling on the open market for $7 a piece—and this is the market the Trump administration is trusting to get supplies where they are needed most quickly.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that 75% or the workers who need the direct cash payments from the IRS will not get them because they fall into categories of workers who were written out of the legislation. 

When we turn out the news at night, healthcare workers are holding pictures of their dead colleagues. A ship captain who spoke out to save the lives of his men has been relieved of duty. And the White House keeps saying they can’t do more because it would violate states’ rights, echoing the logic of the 19th century slaveholders.

These are, my sisters and brothers, signs of a nation approaching spiritual death.

11 million undocumented workers who pay sales tax and pay into Social Security were denied testing and treatment during this pandemic, as though the disease will not impact the people who are often preparing and picking this nation’s food.

Across this nation, as we take shelter in our homes, we’ve made few real provisions for homeless people, so that they can comply with stay-at-home orders. As America tries to protect itself from this pandemic, we’ve given trillions to corporations, but politicians refused to provide the $50 billion needed to provide childcare to essential workers. What moral sense does this make?

We see the symptoms of a nation fast approaching spiritual death. 

For those in our prison systems, there has been no real effort to remove nonviolent offenders or even nonviolent persons who are awaiting trial but cannot afford bail despite the fact that prisons are fast becoming petri dishes where the virus is quickly spreading. So, someone who is merely awaiting trial could die as an innocent person in jail or prison because of the underlying condition of an unjust system of mass incarceration.

Lastly, though we see all of the nurses and the doctors and emergency workers and the orderlies and the janitors who are going in on the front lines and treating people in hospitals begging for equipment, the President and his team refuse to use the Defense Production Act to nationalize manufacturing in a way that could ramp up production to get what is needed because of some misguided fear that this would look like socialism. When political ideology prevents us from acting to save lives, we are a nation fast approaching spiritual death.

When we look at what is happening in the mist of this pandemic, we see the symptoms of an approaching spiritual death. They cannot be denied. And we do ourselves and our posterity a disservice if we turn to false hope and look away from this pain.

This week what is happening became so glaring that the Boston Globe wrote, “The crisis was preventable… As the American public braces itself for the worst of this crisis, it’s worth remembering that the reach of the virus here is not attributable to an act of God or a foreign invasion, but a colossal failure of leadership. The months the administration wasted with prevarication about the threat and its subsequent missteps will amount to exponentially more COVID-19 cases than were necessary.”

But if we are willing to look honestly at our condition, we will also see that there are, even now, people standing up across this nation. Yes, we have symptoms of spiritual death and the underlying conditions that compromise our body politic. But we are also witnessing the fighting spirit of a democracy that is determined not to die. When we pay attention to organizing among poor and marginalized people who have always been this nation’s greatest hope, we see a revival of the desire to establish justice and to promote the general welfare. 

Click here to watch the full recording of Rev. Dr. William Barber’s livestream. 

** Transcript of Adam Taylor’s talk is below.

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD. — Lev. 19:18

As evangelical Christians in America, we are grieved by the violence that has consumed Israel and Gaza and we are troubled by the ways our faith tradition has been used to justify it. Yet even as we witness gross distortions of faith by Christian nationalists in public life, we also celebrate how people from Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions around the world are coming together to cry for peace. So say cease-fire, some say a “cessation of hostilities,” some say humanitarian pause. Some just say, “Stop for the babies!” But the world is experiencing a kind of Pentecost as people cry out in different tongues with a unified call to end the violence.

Judaism teaches through the prophet Amos that God hears a united remnant against injustice. Islam teaches that “God is with the group.” And Jesus prayed that we all might be One, even as he and his Father are One. There is power in the unified cry of faithful people.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share moral convictions that ground our response to this moment.

We believe that every human being is created in the image of God. Both the Talmud and Islamic teaching say that to save a single life is to save all humanity, and Jesus extends the law of love for kin and neighbors even to those who are our enemies. Together we believe that every Israeli life is precious; every Palestinian life is precious; every single life is precious.

We also share the conviction that vengeance belongs to God. While governments have a right and duty to ensure security, our traditions insist on restraint and limits when the state exercises its power. No government knows enough to become the ultimate arbiter of justice.

Finally, our traditions share a commitment to justice, especially for those who are weak and vulnerable in this world. Whenever there is an imbalance of power, God hears the cries of those who are suffering and calls us to join their cry for justice.

Because of these shared convictions and our knowledge that a “three-fold chord is not easily broken,” we join our voices with Jews, Christians, and Muslims around the world who are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and the safe return of all hostages and civilian prisoners taken in the present conflict.

While “cease-fire” is a technical term of international law, our faith demands that we outline a basic moral call to CEASE-FIRE.

Confront and stop immediately indiscriminate violence against any civilian, especially women, children, and the sick.

End the denial of basic necessities to any population, including food, water, electricity, fuel, internet, and medical supplies.

Affirm the image of God in every human being.

Stop the practice of holding hostages and ensure the safe return of all hostages and prisoners home.

Exercise nonviolent power to build a just peace for all people.

Faithfully work as Jews, Christians, and Muslims to support a viable alternative to the brutality of Hamas and to challenge the Netanyahu administration’s practices of occupation and apartheid.

Insist that human rights for all people are nonnegotiable.

Raise a moral cry against murder, indiscriminate violence, war, and public policies rooted in vengeance, no matter which faith is used to justify violence.

Engage nonviolently to interrupt the violence that is being carried out against fellow human beings.

As people who are committed to manifesting beloved community and overcoming violence of any kind against any person or people, we steadfastly demand that justice be done and seek to protect the dignity of all human life regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or national identity.

We need a cease-fire for God’s sake, for the future’s sake, for the sake of the babies who are dying, and for the sake of our own humanity.

Jesus said, “If you live by the sword, you will die by the sword,” and, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made clear, in an era of nuclear weapons that can destroy the whole world, our ultimate choice is not between violence and nonviolence, but between nonviolence and nonexistence. Killing our future is worse than wrong; it is an act of despair that denies God’s hope.

Our faith compels us to lift up this moral call for a cease-fire. We invite any who share this conviction to join people of faith around the world who are praying and taking action for peace.

Bishop William J. Barber, II
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, Yale Divinity School
Repairers of the Breach

Shane Claiborne
Red Letter Christians

Mae Elise Cannon
Churches for Middle East Peace

Rodney Sadler
Center for Social Justice and Reconciliation, Union Presbyterian Seminary

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove
Center for Public Theology and Public Policy, Yale Divinity School

**Transcript of Adam Taylor’s talk at the vigil:

These remarks were drawn in part from the article published on Sojourners, Dear Christians, Cease-Fire Is Not Surrender.

Beloved—I want to thank Churches for Middle East Peace and all of the other faith leaders here tonight for this powerful witness. As we mark 44 painful and tragic days since the horrific massacre of Israelis by Hamas on October 7 and the estimated 12,000 Gazans who have lost their lives due to Israel’s bombing campaign, we continue to grieve and lament with all the families who have lost loved ones and we pray for an immediate end to the violence in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.  

This unconscionable suffering and violence breaks the very heart of our God.  While we pray that hostages can and will be a released through a temporary pause, we know that temporary is not nearly enough.  If our nation can negotiate a temporary pause, then surely, we can also negotiate a permanent one through a ceasefire to help end the war.  We also know that a ceasefire is not a surrender, instead it is a courageous step toward peace.   

Contrary to the misguided logic of war, we know that there is no true military solution to this crisis. Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God” These countercultural words from Jesus’ sermon on the Mount reverberate across time and space are equally relevant and urgent today.  Yes beloved, this is a time for peacemaking — and that starts with a ceasefire. As peacemakers, we must honor the image of God in every Israeli and every Palestinian. We must be clear that our condemning of Hamas’ actions and ideology and our support for Israel’s right to security does not negate our deep commitment to justice and liberation in Palestine!  And while we must strongly oppose both antisemitism and Islamophobia, we must be clear that condemning actions by the state of Israel should not be conflated with antisemitism!

Throughout scripture, God commands both truth and action — and forbids their opposites. Leviticus chapter 19, verse 16 says: “You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand idly by when the blood of your neighbor is at stake: I am the Lord.”  And now, refusing to stand idly by means advocating that our own government use its power rightly.

And that’s why we’re here tonight. We are here to pray and to call on President Biden and his administration to apply maximum pressure to negotiate an immediate and durable ceasefire in order to help end the current war and restrain a wider regional conflict. We are here to ensure that sufficient medical aid, water, food, and fuel can reach Gazan civilians.  We are here to call for the immediate release of all hostages.  We are here to call for political solutions that provide lasting peace, security, and justice for all Israelis and all Palestinians.  It is time to replace the misguided logic of war with the imperative for peace. 

God, we pray that you will swiftly bring comfort for the grieving, freedom for the hostage, and lasting peace and justice to Israel and Palestine. We are reminded that you are rock in a weary land and a bridge over even the most troubled water.  Help us to stand on your rock today as we embrace your call to be peacemakers.  In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and liberator we pray, Amen.  

Add Your Voice to this Call for a Cease-fire

By William J. Barber, II, Liz Theoharis, Iva Carruthers, and Rick Jacobs

According to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, almost 300,000 more people have died in the US during the coronavirus pandemic than would in a typical year. As faith leaders who’ve said burial rites, sat virtual shiva, and prayed the Janazah with families who were not able to be with their loved ones when they died, we have been on the front lines of this surge in death. Before covid-19, we were already weary of the death toll, especially among poor and low-income Americans. But this pandemic has exposed how much of the death in our communities results from the decisions of political leaders. As our communities go to the polls in this year’s election, we are uniting to ring our bells for those who long to be heard and protect the vote.

We cannot be silent as the voting rights of poor, Black and brown people are suppressed and democratic norms are called into question. We know we are voting for every voice forever silenced by covid-19 and poverty, and we are voting for every one disenfranchised by discriminatory laws. We are voting for every one of the 133 million Americans with preexisting conditions and the 140 million people who are either living in poverty or one fire, storm, job loss, or healthcare crisis away from poverty.

These victims of policy violence have joined our spiritual ancestors – those who endured violence and intimidation at every turn in order to vote years ago: Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, Sister Antona, Rev. James Reeb, Jimmie Lee Jackson and many others, both named and unnamed.

READ: For These Next Seven Days: A Prayer for Those Filled With Dread

Despite these witnesses who died in the struggle for voting rights, we are still living in an impoverished democracy. In the midst of a global pandemic, efforts to increase capacity for voting by mail as well as safe in-person voting at early voting locations and polling sites on Election Day have been challenged in court and questioned daily on cable news. Domestic groups are spreading disinformation and attempting to undermine the integrity of this election. Even public officials in the highest offices in the land have refused to promise that they will accept the results of the election.

Poor and low wealth people have been disproportionately impacted by both covid-19 and voter suppression. We cannot allow anything or anybody to interfere, take, or abridge the right of those who have suffered most to vote in this election. Indeed, poor and low-income people hold the key to changing our entire political landscape and making poverty and racism history.

This past August, a groundbreaking report showed that poor and low-income people can play a critical role in creating a transformative new electorate. With just a small uptick in voting, eligible poor and low-income voters in 15 states exceed the margin of victory from the 2016 Presidential election and in 16 states from the 2018 midterms. When poor and low-income voters participate at the same level as higher income voters, they have the power to win health care, living wages, quality education, and true immigration and police reform for all. This is what poor and low-income voters can do in this election.

In his famous line which has echoed across generations, the English poet John Donne wrote that we should “never send to ask for whom the bell tolls / it tolls for Thee.” When he wrote those words, church bells in English villages were used to call the community together for funerals. This year, as America has faced unprecedented sickness and death, we have used bells, pots and pans to honor the frontline healthcare workers who risk their lives every day to care for the sick. They do not have to ask for whom the bells toll. They toll for everyone who has stepped up to do their part in the midst of the pandemics covid-19, poverty, and racism.

At noon on each day of the week prior to November 3rd—and each hour on the hour as Americans vote on Election Day—faith communities in all 50 states will ring bells from our houses of worship and on the sidewalks of our communities. These bells will toll for you, calling every American to march to the polls and protect voting rights. We invite you to join us and pray with us as we lift up this nation and this election. May the clear sound of our bells pierce through the noise of this season and remind us of the call for each and every American’s vote to be counted.

Bishop William J. Barber, II is co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, alongside Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis.

Your voice is needed at this most morally perilous time in our nation’s history.

Our nation is battling not one, but three pandemics: the COVID-19 virus, poverty, and systemic racism, including brutalization and trauma by police and policy.  Such a time as this calls for religious leaders with the moral clarity to cry out prophecy from the pain, and to insist that America face the fullness of our truth.

168 years ago, on the 5th of July Frederick Douglass issued such a word.

 “At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream …For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.”

We are calling on you to join in a clap of thunder, a prophetic word, on July 5th.  We are calling forth our power to speak with one voice from the same texts.

Say it plain and in your tradition: America is not yet what she was proclaimed to be.  Say it plain that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” have become hypocrisy while black Americans are continuously brutalized.  While senators sleep soundly, refusing to uphold the Voting Rights Act and working to suppress the vote for seven years in ways we haven’t seen since Jim Crow.  Read the Poor People’s Moral Justice Jubilee Policy Platform.

America is not yet who she promised to be while the money runs out and the rent is due for 140 million poor and low-income folks.  Not yet, while the COVID-19 cases rise and essential workers are sacrificed to this system.

There must be a rising of prophets!

168 years later, we are calling on 168 faith leaders to speak out against these three pandemics on the weekend of July 3-5. Speak from your tradition.  Speak in your way.  Speak at a time in the day you appoint.  But add your name to those who will not be silent anymore.  Will you join us?

Sign the pledge to preach the truth on this July 4th weekend of the America yet to be, and that must be.

Below you will find the four sacred texts as options to preach from this weekend. On Sunday, we will also host a special livestream service as a late afternoon intergenerational service, embracing the voices of our retired elders.  We will share the details of that service with you to share with your faith communities.  If you are a community faith leader not preaching for a specific congregation this weekend, consider a livestream from your personal social media account.

The nation needs a prophetic voice that would dare tell the truth as tyrants reign and apathy infects our elected officials. We won’t be silent anymore.  Join us. 

In the abiding Spirit of Love and Justice,

Rev. Dr. William Barber, II and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis (Co-Chairs, Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival)

Dr. Iva Carruthers, PhD (General Secretary Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference)

Rev. Dr. Alvin O’Neal Jackson (National Executive Director Mass Poor People’s Assembly and Moral March)

Rev. Dr. Robin Tanner & Dr. Adam Barnes (Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival Faith Partners Team)

Readings for Sunday July 5th:

Jeremiah 22:1-5 The Message

22 ^1-3 God’s orders: “Go to the royal palace and deliver this Message. Say, ‘Listen to what God says, O King of Judah, you who sit on David’s throne—you and your officials and all the people who go in and out of these palace gates. This is God’s Message: Attend to matters of justice. Set things right between people. Rescue victims from their exploiters. Don’t take advantage of the homeless, the orphans, the widows. Stop the murdering! ^4-5 “‘If you obey these commands, then kings who follow in the line of David will continue to go in and out of these palace gates mounted on horses and riding in chariots—they and their officials and the citizens of Judah. But if you don’t obey these commands, then I swear—God’s Decree!—this palace will end up a heap of rubble.’”

Jeremiah 22: 1-5 NIV

22 This is what the Lord says: “Go down to the palace of the king of Judah and proclaim this message there: ² ‘Hear the word of the Lord to you, king of Judah, you who sit on David’s throne—you, your officials and your people who come through these gates. ³ This is what the Lord says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of the oppressor, the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place. ⁴ For if you are careful to carry out these commands, then kings who sit on David’s throne will come through the gates of this palace, riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by their officials and their people.⁵ But if you do not obey these commands, declares the Lord, I swear by myself that this palace will become a ruin.

Matthew 23:23-24 The Message (MSG)

^23-24 “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but on the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion and commitment—the absolute basics!—you carelessly take it or leave it. Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing a life story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commas and semicolons?

Matthew 23:23 New International Version (NIV)

²³ “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

Frederick Douglass, July 5^th 1852 addressing the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society in Rochester, New York

“At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. O! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation’s ear, I would, to-day, pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced. What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.”

The Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

It’s that cry that my mama used to tell me about when she said, “Black women can cry and fight at the same time.” She said, “That cry, that cry, it makes you dangerous to the forces of injustice.” And this moment is going to take a movement of consciousness. Our families are crying, but through their tears, some of them are saying, if our loved ones have to die, their deaths can’t be in vain.

We’ve got to honor their death. We got to honor their death, and the [way] that we honor their death is that we’ve got to come out of this pandemic and . . . fight for change so that this never, ever happens again. We’ve got to cry like that, y’all.

I asked the question the other day, “Could this be the moment, all of this pain, when the death of our fellow Americans may just very well cause us to get up from our apathy . . . ”

Watch the Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II’s full sermon, “Cries in Crisis Can Change Things,” here.

This public health crisis is calling on leaders to make many hard choices, but what to do to protect people’s lives in prisons and jails isn’t one of them. What is moral and what is scientifically necessary and what is legal are, in this case, all aligned: states must swiftly and safely reduce the prison population to protect people from this virus’s lethal spread.

Public health experts nationwide have warned our prisons are tinderboxes for Covid-19 infections. This isn’t a hypothetical statement; in North Carolina, it’s a dangerous reality. The Federal Correctional Complex in Butner has now reported that four inmates have died and at least 82 inmates have tested positive for Covid-19 — so far, the highest number of cases of any federal prison in the nation. At least 22 staff at the prison have tested positive as well, which means their own lives are at grave risk and they carry that risk home to their families and communities.

We know Butner is the canary in North Carolina’s correctional coal mine; Covid-19 infections have been reported in at least six state prisons, with at least 37 state prisoners and 20 staff testing positive, and those numbers, already higher in the eastern part of the state, are swiftly climbing.

The numbers who will be impacted without further action are staggering. Around 35,000 people are incarcerated in North Carolina state prisons and tens of thousands more in local county jails. In total, including federal prisons and immigration detention, statistics have suggested that 639 of every 100,000 North Carolinians is locked behind bars. We know too that a disproportionate percentage of those incarcerated are African American. For instance, while African Americans make up 22% of our state population, 55% of those incarcerated are Black — compared with whites, who are 65% of our state population but just 36% of people in jail or prison.

READ: Letter to Homeland Security: Release Vulnerable Detainees

We understand that rampant structural bias leads to Black folks, Latinos, and the poorest in our communities being disproportionately arrested, sentenced and incarcerated. But North Carolina’s leaders, even those who have been able to symbolically acknowledge historical wrongs committed by our criminal justice system, today, when faced with the combination of that history and the devastating transmission rate of this lethal disease, fail to acknowledge a plain fact: without action, a prison sentence, for many with vulnerabilities to this virus, will equal a death sentence. If the state compounds historic injustice with inaction in this moment, it is unilaterally, unjustly and immorally condemning people to die.

We can see clearly that this disease preys on the fissures of inequality and injustice in our society. The choice we’re left with is whether, in our response to the pandemic, we deepen those fissures — or help them heal. Indeed, prison is allegedly a societal instrument of healing and redemption. But that’s only in theory. In practice, we know that throughout our history these crowded facilities have become warehouses where we throw away the people our society plainly, structurally rejects. Now the virus is holding up a mirror to our immorality. Do we really want to rehabilitate and reintegrate people condemned to prison, as we claim? Or are we content to stand by as a virus sweeps through these tightly enclosed facilities, where social distancing by the numbers is literally physically impossible, hoping that our failure to act isn’t the same as active complicity in their death?

Yes, this is also a legal issue. Prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment in the United States and North Carolina constitutions are why a coalition of civil rights organizations in North Carolina filed suit last week against Governor Roy Cooper and Department of Public Safety Secretary Erik Hooks. Governor Cooper and Secretary Hooks not only have the authority to act, they have a duty. Currently there are children locked up in North Carolina juvenile detention facilities who aren’t able to see their families because of the virus. And there are thousands of vulnerable people — elderly, ill, living with disabilities and chronic conditions — locked up in close quarters who fear for their lives because of this virus. Failing to act to protect the lives and health of incarcerated North Carolinians isn’t only unjust and immoral. It is illegal.

Forward Justice and the North Carolina NAACP, in conjunction with the ACLU of North Carolina, Emancipate North Carolina and Disability Rights North Carolina, are seeking a court order to require the state government to expedite the release of people who are over the age of 65 or have underlying medical conditions that put them at higher risk of Covid-19 infections and mortality, people who have a projected release date within the next 12 months or are currently eligible for work release, and people who are pregnant. Otherwise, quite simply, many more people in North Carolina’s prisons will die.

A pandemic is yet another problem we can’t solve with incarceration. The question is will we quicken its spread through the tinderbox of our overcrowded prisons, condemning those whose liberties we’ve already taken away to also lose their lives, while forcing families and communities that have already disproportionately suffered to suffer even more. Not a one of us has the right to stand as executioner. Today we need bold, unflinching leadership. Governor Cooper and Secretary Hooks should join the ranks of those across this country who are listening to science, following the dictates of the Constitution and acknowledging the human dignity and worthiness of the lives of those who are imprisoned in their care — to save lives, and save their own souls.

This piece first appeared on medium.com.

As we watch public health officials at press conferences and on public service announcements, we have all learned that if you have fever, headaches and difficulty breathing, you cannot take those symptoms lightly. You must quarantine and be tested because these are not only the symptoms of COVID-19; they are also a sign that you could in fact be moving toward death.

53 years ago this past Saturday, on April 4th, 1967, Dr. Martin Luther King stood in the Riverside Church in New York City and declared that there comes a time when silence is betrayal. He listed racism, poverty and militarism as three evils that were placing the United States of America and even the world in danger. 

As he delivered his sermon that night, he also said that any nation that puts more money and resources into its military than into social and economic uplift is approaching spiritual death. Dr. King did not say that such a nation was dead, but he named these as the symptoms of a nation approaching spiritual death. In these critical days when we have been made especially sensitive to the need to watch for symptoms, it is not just our physical bodies we must watch but also our body politic. 

The Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival has named the symptoms of approaching spiritual and moral death in America right now. In this moment, it is essential that everyone in the nation know the symptoms. To fail to address them for any person or group is to risk the well-being of every American. Now is the time to treat these symptoms with the medicine of moral revival.

We cannot delay. We cannot succumb to those forces who say we must put off larger systemic concerns until this public health crisis has passed. No, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed America’s pandemic of poverty and we must act together to address these underlying conditions before they do irreparable damage to our democracy.

Epidemics emerge along the fissures of our society, reflecting not only the biology of the infectious agent, but patterns of marginalization, exclusion and discrimination. The coronavirus pandemic is no exception. The United States has many open wounds rooted in decades of racist policies and the criminalization of the poor. COVID-19 has revealed deep failures, and will reinforce existing health inequities unless we proactively turn our attention to the how we serve the poorest and most marginalized in our societies.

Well before our present crisis, the symptoms of greed and lies pointed to the reality that we were approaching spiritual and moral death. But now one germ has exposed our weakness. One germ had laid bare the vulnerability of inequality. One germ has shut down the world because we can’t bomb it out, we can’t lie it out, we can’t pay enough money to make it go away. And so we must attend to the symptoms of a nation approaching spiritual death.

Before this present crisis, we had 140 million poor and low wealth people in the wealthiest nation in the world. 43% of this nation was living in poverty and low wealth, and because of this underlying condition, 700 people were already dying each day from poverty. 

We hear the reports that 200,000 people could die from COVID-19 and we are terrified because we know that could be any one of us or our loved ones. But the US is quickly racing toward to highest death rate in the world because the extreme inequality we have long tolerated in this nation creates underlying conditions that make us peculiarly susceptible to this disease. 

For 40 years in this nation, Republicans have racialized poverty while Democrats have tried to run from poverty, only wanting to talk about the middle class and working Americans, as if there were not millions of working poor people in this country. Prior to this pandemic we had millions upon millions of Americans without health insurance. Many states refused to even expand Medicaid. Furthermore, we saw outright racist attacks on the most fundamental aspect of a democracy: voting rights.  

Before the pandemic ever hit, these were the symptoms of a nation fast approaching a kind of spiritual and moral death.

The symptoms also included a refusal to address the climate crisis that is threatening the planet. 

We also found ourselves with a war economy budget that took 53 cents of every discretionary dollar and fed it to an already bloated and overgrown military budget while working people were being denied living wages and union rights.

And this was all happening alongside a religious nationalism that suggests the only moral issues in the public square are standing against a woman’s right to choose, being against gay people, and touting a twisted notion of religious freedom that is actually about using religion to discriminate.

READ: King’s Poor People’s Campaign Lives Again

All of these things we believe were signs of a nation approaching spiritual and moral death.

Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the symptoms worsened. As soon as it became clear that the president had lied when he said that the virus would quickly pass, the first move was to give Wall Street and corporations a record bailout. The very people who’ve wondered aloud how we would ever find the money to address the needs of poor and low wealth people suddenly realized overnight that a government can invest in anything it considers essential to its survival. This is a glaring sign of a nation approaching spiritual and moral death because the greed of Wall Street was placed above the lives of people. 

While the pandemic grew, more signs of an approaching spiritual death became evident. Last week, Congress passed a relief bill that left out millions of poor and low wealth people. People in our society who make $12,000 as an individual or $24,000 as a couple do not have to file taxes, but only tax filers got a one-time $1200 bail out in this relief bill. It’s another symptom that we are approaching spiritual death.

As tens of millions live under stay-at-home orders, we now call grocery workers, janitors in hospitals, fast food and other service workers “essential.” But we refuse to ensure their paid sick leave, we deny them living wages, and we do not guarantee them access to healthcare if and when they do get sick. It’s one of the underlying conditions this pandemic is exposing, and it is a symptom of this nation’s approaching spiritual death.

When we take a moment to pay attention, these symptoms are all around us. Masks that were 76 cents a piece 6 weeks ago are selling on the open market for $7 a piece—and this is the market the Trump administration is trusting to get supplies where the are needed most quickly.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that 75% or the workers who need the direct cash payments from the IRS will not get them because they fall into categories of workers who were written out of the legislation. 

When we turn out the news at night, healthcare workers are holding pictures of their dead colleagues. A ship captain who spoke out to save the lives of his men has been relieved of duty. And the White House keeps saying they can’t do more because it would violate states rights, echoing the logic of the 19th century slaveholders.

These are, my sisters and brothers, signs of a nation approaching spiritual death.

11 million undocumented workers who pay sales tax and pay into Social Security were denied testing and treatment during this pandemic, as though the disease will not impact the people who are often preparing and picking this nation’s food.

Across this nation, as we take shelter in our homes, we’ve made few real provisions for homeless people, so that they can comply with stay-at-home orders. As America tries to protect itself from this pandemic, we’ve given trillions to corporations, but politicians refused to provide the $50 billion needed to provide childcare to essential workers. What moral sense does this make?

We see the symptoms of a nation fast approaching spiritual death. 

For those in our prison systems, there has been no real effort to remove nonviolent offenders or even nonviolent persons who are awaiting trial but cannot afford bail despite the fact that prisons are fast becoming petri dishes where the virus is quickly spreading. So someone who is merely awaiting trial could die as an innocent person in jail or prison because of the underlying condition of an unjust system of mass incarceration.

Lastly, though we see all of the nurses and the doctors and emergency workers and the orderlies and the janitors who are going in on the front lines and treating people in hospitals begging for equipment, the President and his team refuse to use the Defense Production Act to nationalize manufacturing in a way that could ramp up production to get what is needed because of some misguided fear that this would look like socialism. When political ideology prevents us from acting to save lives, we are a nation fast approaching spiritual death.

When we look at what is happening in the mist of this pandemic, we see the symptoms of an approaching spiritual death. They cannot be denied. And we do ourselves and our posterity a disservice if we turn to false hope and look away from this pain.

This week what is happening became so glaring that the Boston Globe wrote, “The crisis was preventable… As the American public braces itself for the worst of this crisis, it’s worth remembering that the reach of the virus here is not attributable to an act of God or a foreign invasion, but a colossal failure of leadership. The months the administration wasted with prevarication about the threat and its subsequent missteps will amount to exponentially more COVID-19 cases than were necessary.”

But if we are willing to look honestly at our condition, we will also see that there are, even now, people standing up across this nation. Yes, we have symptoms of spiritual death and the underlying conditions that compromise our body politic. But we are also witnessing the fighting spirit of a democracy that is determined not to die. When we pay attention to organizing among poor and marginalized people who have always been this nation’s greatest hope, we see a revival of the desire to establish justice and to promote the general welfare. 

Click here to watch the full recording of Rev. Dr. William Barber’s livestream. 

And he said, along with others, that the only way to address these matters is to raise a campaign with those who have nothing to lose, but might have the moral and spiritual capacity to turn the nation’s conscience and character toward the way of love, truth, justice and nonviolence.

We are in such a moment now, and this moment of moral crisis demands a call for revival.

As the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival comes to North Carolina with our “We Must Do MORE Tour,” I’m glad to get to partner with Red Letter Christians for this Red Letter Revival.

We know what the scripture says: We are not of those who shrink back, but of those who press on unto the salvation of the soul. Though some misuse and abuse religion to defend immorality, we know that if the people of North Carolina chose to rise instead of shrink back, we can press on to save the soul of America.

It’s time for a revival of love and justice. Join us in North Carolina for the #GoldsboroRevival on October 1 & 2, or tune into the livestream.

“If you really change your ways and your actions and deal with each other justly, if you do not oppress the foreigner, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm, then I will let you live in this place, in the land I gave your ancestors for ever and ever. But look, you are trusting in deceptive words that are worthless.” — Jeremiah 7:5-8

Recently, we were in El Paso at the invitation of the Border Network for Human Rights to highlight the violence that their community has been suffering. We heard stories of families separated, asylum seekers turned away and refugees detained like prisoners of war. We heard how their community has been militarized and how poor border communities have been especially targeted. We promised that we would do everything in our power to compel the nation to see this violence. Just a few days later, a terrorist opened fire in El Paso. And then another attack occurred in Dayton.

In reflecting on these outbreaks of violence, our hearts are broken. This moment demands a moral reckoning with who we are and who we want to become as a nation.

The truth is that, while every generation has worked to push us toward becoming a more perfect union, we have also tolerated lies that beget violence. America’s founding fathers spoke of liberty, while drafting documents that called Native Americans savages, accepted the enslavement of Africans, and ignored the voices of women. This hypocrisy created space for slaveholder religion to bless white supremacy, pseudo-science to justify eugenics, a sick sociology to pit people against one another, and predatory policies to scapegoat non-white immigrants and blame poverty on the poor.

Politicians who try to denounce the racism of an individual, but do not denounce racist policies refuse to deal with the depths of the problems we face. We cannot address the violence of white nationalism without stopping the policies of white nationalism and the lies that are told to justify them. In 1963, George Wallace began to spew racist rhetoric from the governor’s office in Alabama. By the end of that year, Medgar Evers was dead, four girls in a church were dead, and a president was dead because these words and these policies were a breeding ground for violence. It always has been that way. Whenever we’ve had these words and policies, they have also unleashed this kind of violence.

For this reason, we call on President Trump, members of Congress, and presidential candidates; our people on the ground in movements and communities of struggle; people who have embraced the lies of white nationalism; and our religious leaders and people of faith and conscience to revive the heart and soul of this country.

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