Chronicle File Photo
The Dr. Rev. William J.
Barber II, president of
the N.C. NAACP, speaks
to the crowd in
Winston-Salem this
summer as the N.C.
NAACP vs. McCrory
trial was going on.
Barber to receive $100K prize for creative citizenship
FROM WIRE, STAFF AND
SPECIAL REPORTS
The president of the
North Carolina chapter of
the NAACPwill receive an
annual $10d,000 prize for
creative citizenship, The
Associated Press reports.
The Nation Institute
said this month that the
Rev. Dr. William Barber II
will receive the annual
Puffin/Nation Prize, which
honors people who chal
lenge the status quo. The
prize is intended to encour
age recipients to continue
their work and to inspire
others. The award will be
presented Dec. 8 in New
York City.
Barber is the minister at
Greenleaf Christian
Church in Goldsboro, and
he built the Forward
Together Moral Monday
movement that supports
issues such as voting,
immigrant and labor rights.
He will write an annual
report for The Nation mag
azine, with the first essay
appearing in January. The
magazine published similar
essays by Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. from 1961
to 1966.
The Advancement
Project, a multi-racial civil
rights organization, pro
vides more background on
Barber.
Barber has served on a
volunteer-basis as the pres
ident of the North Carolina
State Conference of the
NAACP since he was
elected in 2005. He volun
teers as one of 64 members
of the NAACP National
Board of Directors, and is
chair of the National
NAACP's Legislative and
Political Action
Committee.
In his role as president
of the N.C. NAACP,
Barber convened the
Forward Together! Moral
Movement, an alliance of
more than 200 progressive
organizations in North
Carolina united around a
multi-racial, multi-issue
agenda.
In July of this year, the
issue was voting rights and
the legal action the N.C.
NAACP has taken against
the state of North Carolina.
Mass Moral Monday
March in Winston-Salem
Barber was among the
plaintiffs who testified on
the opening day of trial in
the legal challenge to North
Carolina's "voter suppres
sion law,'' H.B 589. His
testimony was followed by
a march of thousands
through the streets of
Winston-Salem, united in
the call for equal voting
rights. The march attracted
at least 3,500 people. The
federal judge had not
released a ruling in the
legal case as of Tuesday.
For 10 years, the
Forward Together! Moral
Movement has fearlessly
organized for progressive
change through civil dis
obedience. When conser
vative extremists took over
the state legislature in
2013, Barber united the
coalition for weekly Moral
Monday protests. These
weekly demonstrations
have spotlighted economic
justice, universal health
care, and public education,
and have been used to push
back against the gutting of
social programs and voting
rights in the state.
The movement united
for 200 actions, and in
February of 2014 brought
together 80,000 people in a
mass demonstration.
Barber is among the
over 1,000 protesters
arrested as part of Moral
Monday organized actions,
during which he has been
arrested five times.
Progressive organizers
have adopted this model of
sustained, strategic civil
disobedience across the
nation.
Set in the long tradition
of civil rights advocacy,
Barber has marched beside
thousands. Since 2006, he
has invited progressive
organizations into the
Historic Thousands on
Jones Street People's
Assembly, known as "HK
on J." The group's annual
march has brought tens of
thousands to North
Carolina's capital to cham
pion a 14-point anti
racism, anti-poverty, anti
war agenda.
The Puffin/Nation
Prize is the most recent in a
series of awards acknowl
edging Rev. Barber and the
Forward Together! Moral
Movement's incredible
impact on civil rights.
Other awards
In September, he
received the Roosevelt
Institute's Freedom of
Worship Medal in honor of
"his courageous work
drawing together new
coalitions of progressives
in his native North
Carolina and across the
country."
With this award he
joined a long list of promi
nent defenders of civil lib
erties, including Supreme
Court Justice Ruth Bader
Ginsberg and Nelson
Mandela.
Also in September,
Barber won the CBC
Chair's Award, which was
awarded at the
Congressional Black
Caucus' Legislative
Conference Phoenix
Awards Dinner in
Washington, DC.
Barber is also the recip
ient of the Order of the
Long Leaf Pine, North
Carolina's highest citizen
ship award.
Already the published
author of "Forward
Together: A Moral
Message for the Nation,"
Barber will release a col
lection of his Moral
Monday speedhes, The
Third Reconstruction:
Moral Mondays, Fusion
Politics, and the Rise of a
New Justice Movement, in
January 2016.
Also, he will write an
annual report for The
Nation magazine on the
state of race, civil rights
and the revival of grass
roots anti-racism move
ments, with the first essay
also appearing in January
2016. From 1961 to 1966.
the magazine published
similar essays by Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Wake Forest joins White House initiative on women, girls of color
SPECIAL TO
THE CHRONICLE
Wake Forest University
is among a group of two
dozen colleges, universities
and public interest organi
zations that collectively
announced $18 million in
commitments to support
and improve academic
research about women and
girls of color.
The announcement on
Friday, Nov. 13, came dur
ing a daylong summit on
"Advancing Equity for
Women and Girls of Color"
co-hosted by White House
Council on Women and
Girls and the Anna Julia
Cooper Center at Wake
Forest University.
Wake Forest Provost
Rogan Kersh introduced
the "Collaborative to
Advance Equity through
Research" to publicly
affirm the critical need for
research about women and
girls of color and commit
resources of member insti
tutions to pursuing and
supporting this research.
The specific form of
commitments varies
according to the unique
mission, structure, and
resources of each member
institution. Wake Forest's
commitment includes more
than $1.4 million in ongo
ing support for the Anna
Julia Cooper Center's
research focused on inter
sectional scholarship,
established scholars and
junior scholars whose work
focuses on women and
girls of color, and post-doc
toral fellowships for schol
ars researching related
questions related to gender,
race and place.
"Women of color will
constitute more than half of
all women in the United
States by 2050, but they are
infrequently the central
subjects of scholarly
inquiry," said Kersh, a
prominent social scientist
who also serves as a pro
fessor of politics and inter
national affairs. "This
research deficit has mean
ingful consequences for the
ways our institutions con
tribute to public discourse
and policy making. As part
of the collaborative, Wake
Forest is proud to be
among such a distin
guished group of institu
tions that seeks to address
this deficit."
By bringing together
stakeholders from the aca
demic, private, government
and philanthropic sectors
who are committed to
increasing opportunity and
empowerment for women
and girls of color and their
peers, the summit exam
ined the existing landscape
of research focused on
women and girls of color,
the gaps in knowledge or
data that need to be
addressed, and the kinds of
work that can swiftly and
substantively improve the
ability to make informed
policy choices.
More than 30 speakers
and panelists participated,
including:
?Valerie Jarrett, Chair
of the White House
Council on Women and
Girls and Senior Adviser
and Assistant to the
President for
Intergovernmental Affairs
and Public Engagement
?Loretta Lynch, U.S.
Attorney General
?Tina Tchen, Executive
Director of the White
House Council on Women
and Girls and Chief of Staff
for the First Lady
?Cecilia Mufioz,
Assistant to the President
and Director of the White
House Domestic Policy
Council
?Teresa Younger, CEO
of the Ms. Foundation
"I am extraordinarily
proud that Wake Forest
University has taken a
leadership role convening
this meaningful initiative.
These commitments are
consequential and I gen
uinely believe the work
supported by the institu
tions of the collaborative
will advance the cause of
equity and justice for
women and girls of color,"
said Presidential Endowed
Professor Melissa Harris
Perry, director of the Anna
Julia Cooper Center. She
also gave remarks and
moderated a panel at the
conference. "This is about
fulfilling the core mission
of our university to pro
duce world class scholar
ship and first rate teaching
that is in the service of
humanity, Pro
41Humanitate."
Collaborative to Advance Equity through
Research member institutions
Collaborative to Advance Equity
through Research member institutions
Here are the two dozen colleges, uni
versities and public interest organiza
tions that collectively announced $18
million in commitments to support and
improve academic research about
women and girls of color.
American Association of University
Women
Auburn Theological Seminary
Beacon Press
Bennett College
Black Youth Project of the University
of Chicago
Brown University
Center for American Women and
^Politics of Rutgers University
Center for Medicine, Health, and
Society at Vanderbilt University
Columbia University
Duke University
Howard University School of
Divinity ?
National Center for Civil and Human
Rights
New York University, College of
Global Public Health
North Carolina State University
Schomburg Center for Research in
Black Culture
The Century Foundation
The Hutchins Center for African and
African American Research at Harvard
University
The Nation
"Rifts University
University of Connecticut
University of Pittsburgh
University of Virginia
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and
State University (Virginia Tech)
Wake Forest University
H
PIEDMONT
CRAFTSMEM'S
Deana Blanc hard
and Chock Young
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NEWBRIDGE
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^Minh Martin
BENTON CONVENTION
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WINSTON-SALEM
NOVEMBER 21-22, 2015
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336.725.1516
Mark Ellis
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Ban
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