The Rev. William J. Barber, II, former president of the NAACP in North Carolina, is meeting with Pope Francis over Thanksgiving weekend to discuss social justice work. Barber is now president of Repairers of the Breach, a non-partisan, nonprofit social advocacy group.
The two-day conference will include social justice advocates from the U.S., Canada, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Senegal, Tunisia, Ghana and other countries.
“This is an extremely humbling experience for me. I am deeply honored to even be invited to participate and share in this conference with other clergy, moral leaders and activists on these critical social issues of our time,” Barber said in an email. “The Pope has been on the forefront of declaring that poverty in our current world is a scandal and its eradication should be a top priority. He has called on government and moral leaders to adjust our policies to address the issues of systemic poverty.”
Barber is the founder of the “Moral Mondays” movement, and has been compared by some to the Rev. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. for his preaching and advocacy work.