The Rev William Barber’s ‘moral movement’ confronts Trump’s America. Can it work?

In weekly nonviolent protests that channel the civil rights tradition, the faithful rally to end poverty and injustice

On 2 June, at St Mark's Episcopal church in Washington DC, people packed the sanctuary - elders in denim jackets, seminarians in collars, organizers clutching clipboards. Some had come in from North Carolina; others walked from their homes just a few blocks away. The seats were full, so the crowd lined the aisles and leaned against the red-brick walls beneath stained-glass windows that cast streaks of light across the floor.

It was the first Moral Monday of the summer - a tradition of weekly, nonviolent protest that began in North Carolina in 2013 and now serves as the beating heart of the Rev William Barber's national movement to end poverty and systemic injustice. I am not afraid," the congregation sang. They clapped in rhythm. They swayed in place. Their voices, layered and lived in, reverberated through the rafters: I would die for liberation, because I know why I was made." It was part worship, part invocation, part warning. They folded into the center of the sanctuary as they sang covenants of nonviolence - pledges to neither resist arrest nor retaliate, to remain disciplined and dignified in the face of confrontation. One organizer stepped forward and asked them to consider the gravity of what they were saying. In every cell of your body," he said, do you believe that?"