2025 University MLK Commemoration featuring Bishop William J. Barber II
“More than a Sermon: Martin’s Last Message to Us Now”
Monday, January 27, 2025 | 6:00pm to 7:30pm (Doors open at 5:15 p.m.)
Battell Chapel | 400 College Street, New Haven, CT
This event is free and open to the public, and it will also be livestreamed. Registration is required to attend.
The Yale University and Greater New Haven communities are invited to attend this year’s MLK Commemoration that honors the life and legacy of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. We are pleased to announce that this year’s commemoration will feature Bishop William J. Barber II.
The Rev. Dr. William Joseph Barber II
The Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is President and Senior Lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, Co-Chair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival, Bishop with The Fellowship of Affirming Ministries, Executive Board Member of the Christian Church Disciples of Christ, and Professor in the Practice of Public Theology and Public Policy and Founding Director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School.
He is the author of five books: White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy; We Are Called To Be A Movement; Revive Us Again: Vision and Action in Moral Organizing; The Third Reconstruction: Moral Mondays, Fusion Politics, and The Rise of a New Justice Movement; and Forward Together: A Moral Message For The Nation.
Rev. Dr. Barber served as senior pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church, Disciples of Christ for thirty years, as president of the North Carolina NAACP from 2006-2017, and on the National NAACP Board of Directors from 2008-2020. He is the architect of the Forward Together Moral Movement that gained national acclaim in 2013 with its Moral Monday protests at the North Carolina General Assembly. In 2015, he established Repairers of the Breach to train communities in moral movement building through the Moral Political Organizing Leadership Institute and Summit Trainings (MPOLIS). In 2018, he co-anchored the relaunch of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival— reviving the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign organized by SCLC, under the leadership of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., welfare rights advocates, religious leaders, and people of all races to fight poverty in the U.S.
A highly sought-after speaker, Rev. Dr. Barber has given keynote addresses at hundreds of national and state conferences, including the 2016 Democratic National Convention, the 59th Inaugural Prayer Service for President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Vatican in honor of Pope Francis’s encyclical “Laudato Si’: On Care for Our Common Home,” and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. In June 2018, he addressed the 5th Uni Global Union World Congress with representatives from more than 25 countries.
Dr. Barber is regularly featured in media outlets such as MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times, Washington Post, and The Nation magazine. He is a Senior Fellow with the Kettering Foundation, was named one of 2020’s 100 Entertainers and Innovators by BET, and was a 2019 recipient of the North Carolina Award, the state’s highest civilian honor. He is a 2018 MacArthur Foundation Genius Award recipient and a 2015 recipient of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Four Freedoms Award and the Puffin Award.
Dr. Barber has had twelve honorary degrees conferred upon him. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree from North Carolina Central University, a Master of Divinity from Duke University, and a Doctorate from Drew University with a concentration in Public Policy and Pastoral Care.
Intro video – https://vimeo.com/849784134?share=copy