“We cannot be at ease in America. History is pushing us; the present is demanding us; the future is calling us.”
Rev. William J. Barber II speaks during the “Hands Off!” day of action against the Trump administration and Elon Musk on April 5, 2025 in Washington, DC.(Paul Morigi / Getty Images for Community Change Action)
Fifty-seven years ago, Dr King said on the night before he died, “Nothing would be more tragic than for us to turn back now.”
God, help us not to turn back from the Constitution’s call to establish justice, promote the general welfare, provide for the common defense, and ensure domestics tranquility.
When Trump and Musk and Johnson are signing unconstitutional executive orders, illegally firing people, trying to pass an immoral budget, and wrongfully raising tariffs that not only hurt Wall Street but back streets, side streets, and back roads, we must say today that we will stand up in truth and raise our voices, our votes to declare, “Take your hands off our democracy!”
When their foolish budget plans could remove 36 million people from healthcare and millions of poor, low-wage children from school lunch and refuse to raise wages for 14 million low-wage working American people from $7.25 to $16, we must pray, “God, give us the courage to stand!”
Take your hands of our Medicaid!
Take your hands off our Medicare!
Take your hands off our voting rights!
Take your hands off our living wages!
Take your hands off our public education!
Take your hands off our off our lives!
When greedy technocrats with a supremacy foundation want to rule the country, we with moral vigor and righteous indignation must stand up and say, “No!”
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We cannot be at ease in America. History is pushing us; the present is demanding us; the future is calling us
I said in 2018 that every age must have a movement of people that will build a moral fusion mass movement that stands together because the issues before us are not about left versus right or Republicans versus Democrats, but moral versus immoral, right versus wrong, and justice versus injustice.
And with the help of all that is divine, we must unite more and more, declaring that we are black, we are white, we are Latino, we are Asian, we are native, we are young, we are old, we are north, we are south, we are east, we are west, we are gay, we are straight, we are trans. We are America, and we ain’t going nowhere!
God, give us the strength. We will not allow a budget that goes after the policies that lift the poor and low-wage workers of this nation. We will not accept the attack on federal workers—not now, not ever!
We will prayerfully, with no equivocation, no capitulation, no weakness, declare with all that is holy and divine, “We will not, we cannot, we must not bow.”
We must reclaim our government. We must pledge ourselves to the work of a Third Reconstruction of America. We must lift every voice and sing together. We must lead with love, and we must repent of the apathy that has too often slipped in. We cannot bow.
Finally, they are afraid of you—Trump and Musk, who are wanna-be kings and lords. That crowd is afraid of the power of love, truth, and justice, afraid of unity and diversity. Well, let’s keep them afraid until they change.
My friends, this is way bigger than just a party issue. This is an outright battle for civilization. And the truth is, they are scared of your power to come together. And they are betting that we will be afraid of them. But this is the time that we must increase, intensify, and embolden our agitation for what is right.
We must declare that the only way a wannabe a king can be a king is if we bow, and bowing down is not an option for us. Our knees are not made for bowing to power-drunk neofascists. We bow only to God.
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And so we must stand tall. When they attack everyday people with mean, hurtful policies, we must stand tall and say, “Take your hands off our lives!”
So stand up to the technocrats.
It’s time for our pulpits to stand tall!
It’s time for our statesmen and stateswomen to stand tall!
It’s time for the people to stand tall!
We must mobilize our righteous bodies and hearts by the millions and stand tall now!
We must stand tall because bowing down is not an option.
It may take mass nonviolent sit-ins in the halls of Congress or nonviolent civil disobedience. If they arrest us, so be it. But we must stand tall.
It may take mass pray-ins, but stand tall.
It may take a labor strike day on Election Day so that all working people can vote, but stand tall!
It may take mass counter lawsuits, but stand tall!
Stand tall!
Their plans can’t work long as we are indivisible.
Stand tall in every precinct!
Stand tall in every voting district!
Stand tall in every city!
Stand tall in every state!Stand tall in the truth!
Stand tall in love!
Stand tall in justice!
Stand tall and demand, “Hands of our democracy!”
And if we stand tall, the God of the universe will stand with us. Stand tall!
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber IITwitterThe Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II is The Nation’s civil rights correspondent, and president and senior lecturer of Repairers of the Breach, cochair of the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call For Moral Revival, 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. His most recent book is White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy.