At Presidential Forum, Civil Rights Leader Targets Myths That Weaken Focus on Poverty

Poverty and low wages afflict more than half of America’s children and 43% of adults, but have barely surfaced as issues in this year’s presidential race­—or in the last several election cycles. Denying their existence or telling those struggling they’re “lower middle class” is one of the ways America mythologizes the terrible want that millions face in the world’s richest nation, a noted civil rights leader and scholar told an online audience of Terps on Monday.

The Rev. William J. Barber II was the featured guest at the latest Presidential Distinguished Forum, part of University of Maryland President Darryll J. Pines’ “Grand Challenges of Our Time” course for first-year students, which has featured a range of scientists, writers, businesspeople and activists since Pines kicked it off four years ago.

“What our society has done often is try to do everything to keep from seeing the poor,” Barber said. “The poor who clean our office buildings and work in public schools, the poor who pick produce and put it in the grocery store … the poor and low wage people who take care of our children.”

The talk explored the themes found in the UMD’s 2024 First Year Book, “Poverty, by America” by Princeton University sociologist Matthew Desmond; they include the grand challenges of systemic poverty, racism and economic inequality.

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The event, which included questions for Barber from students about how to fight poverty, was co-sponsored by the First Year Book program, College Park Scholars and the Do Good Institute.

Barber is professor in the practice at Yale University Divinity School, where he is founding director of the Center of Public Theology and Public Policy. He also is co-chair of the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, inspired by the original Poor People’s Campaign organized in 1968 by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and which resulted in thousands of people living on the National Mall for weeks to bring attention to the plight of people of all races living in poverty.

That broad focus inspired Barber’s latest book, “White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy.” Released this year, it seeks to explode the idea that poverty is a condition experienced by those of color; in fact, white people make up the largest racial group among the poor in America by far.

“Some people asked, why would a Black man write a book about white poverty?” Barber told his audience at the forum. “And that was deliberate, because of the way myths have come to drive how we even talk about poverty—the myths that blame Black people for their poverty and then call white people trash when they experience the same.”

One of his group’s goals is to organize poor and low-wage eligible voters who number some 87 million around the country. Low-income people vote at lower rates than other Americans, he said, because few politicians listen to them. But their numbers in swing states are more than sufficient to sway an election.

“Brothers and sisters, we're gonna do it from state to state because we need a third reconstruction in this country,” Barber said as he concluded his talk. “And if it happens, it will lift all people and not just some people. And we will reclaim the hope of this democracy, or at least the hope that we've (seen) written about, but we've never fully seen.”