Our deep prayers & love are with the family of Sister Aretha as she sings & dances on the rhythms of grace to join the choir of heaven in the glory of God’s Presence. “Come unto me all ye that are heavy burdened & I will give you rest." I will never forget after speaking at the DNC in 2016, I received a call from Aretha. I thought it was a joke, & I said, “Is this really Aretha Franklin?” She said, “Is this really Rev Barber?”

Trump keeps saying that under him, unemployment among African Americans is the lowest in history. Not true. We didn't even start measuring Af-Am unemployment until 1972. Also, Trump was handed a good economy, while Obama was handed recession. Obama had to do more and did.

My brother @BenJealous, don't play the extremist game about whether you are a socialist. They would call Jesus, Dr. King, FDR & Mother Teresa socialists & half of them don't even know what the term means. Just tell them who you are: a lover of all people, of democracy & of the least of these. Say, “I'm a constitutionalist b/c I believe in the establishment of justice, the promotion of the general welfare & equal protection under the law.

We must now have mass voter mobilization and nonviolent civil disobedience. When our ancestors faced a #SCOTUS, president and Congress that opposed them, they took to the streets and the ballot box to make their voices heard.

We can’t be silent about historic inequality or recent judicial assaults on workers rights and voting rights. Yesterday over 100 moral activists were arrested across the nation including nine clergy and people of faith who prayed for the justices outside the US Supreme Court.

Children were killed when indigenous Natives were targeted with racism & injustice. Black children were stolen & separated when black people were targeted with slavery & racism. Jewish children were killed & separated when targeted w/ Hitler’s anti-Semitism & Holocaust. Black children like Emmett Till were stolen & killed by Jim Crow.

We must end mandatory minimums if we are serious about fixing the criminal justice system in this country. We cannot play the politics of “piecemilling.” The moral position requires that we demand our politicians deal with establishing justice fully, not just partially. Having a partial and incomplete prison reform bill that doesn’t address sentencing reform is not a first step—it’s a bad step and a side step.

Today in more than 30 states and in the District of Columbia activists, clergy and the poor are organizing nonviolent moral fusion direct actions to confront the policy violence that is devastating our nation. We cannot continue to have a democracy that engages in daily attacks on the poor through immoral public policies.

For @POTUS & @VP to stand in the Rose Garden for #NationalDayOfPrayer while promoting policies that hurt the least of these is height of hypocrisy. For some clergy to stand there & endorse this is a sham. 1/ You can't lift the name of MLK while promoting systemic racism. You can't talk about the church's charity while denying the government's responsibility to the poor. You can't trumpet religious freedom when your party just fired a chaplain for praying. 2/

Theologically, there is a difference b/w profanity & cursing. To curse is to pronounce harm. For a President to write off whole countries as "sh!&holes" in the course of advocating policies of discrimination and inequality is cursing. The President & those who defend him are cursing, not blessing the nation. They curse every time they cover up racism, write tax policy, healthcare policy & voter suppression policies that hurt & discriminate. This is cursing.

In 2018 we must have an all out fight to put voting rights at the top of the political agenda. Full restoration of the VRA must become a top priority for Congressional leadership, not just black members. We must call anyone against this what they are: racist & anti-democracy. We must show the connections b/w the destruction of the VRA, the 4 year filibuster, & the onslaught of legislation against the poor and workers by persons elected through racist voter suppression.