Dear MoveOn member,

I'm Reverend William J. Barber, II, of Repairers of the Breach, the Poor
People's Campaign, and the Moral Mondays movement. And I am asking you to
join me in this call to all the presidential candidates:

All presidential candidates should unite for a massive, pro-voter,
anti-racism rally in Greenville, NC—the city in which Trump supporters
spread a bigoted, racist and xenophobic chant—to reject racism and
regression, register voters, and demonstrate what an America committed to
moving forward together looks like.

[1]Sign Reverend Barber's petition

On July 17, the Trump 2020 campaign held a rally in Greenville, North
Carolina, where President Trump used racist tropes to demonize
Representative Ilhan Omar before pausing to let the crowd chant, "Send her
back!" Along with the vast majority of Americans, all the other
presidential candidates condemned Trump's appeals to racism. We are
writing to invite them to come together for a mass rally in Greenville to
demonstrate what an alternative for America's future looks like.

While the candidates are not enemies, we understand they are competitors.
They have real policy differences between them, and they are on the
campaign trail to make the case for why they should be the next person to
lead the United States of America. But just as the global community of
nation-states has at times put aside competitive differences in order to
face an existential threat, we believe this is a time for candidates to
unite and demonstrate what an America committed to moving forward together
looks like.

[ [link removed] ]If you agree, please add your name to our letter asking all the
candidates to unite against racism and regression and for voter
registration—at a massive rally in North Carolina.

It is important to return to the scene of Trump's crime in North
Carolina's Pitt County, because while the whole world has seen images of a
nearly all-white crowd chanting in racist unison there, we know this does
not actually represent Pitt County or the vast majority of rural America
that Trump 2020 wants to cast as "red counties." Pitt County is not, in
fact, a red county. Hillary Clinton won Pitt County in 2016, as did almost
every Democrat down ticket. Pitt County is in North Carolina's Black Belt.
Poor and low-income Black, white, and Latino people there have voted in a
fusion coalition that demonstrates our capacity to come together and
reject the divide-and-conquer politics of racism.

America desperately needs to see this possibility now. Because such
coalitions are possible all across the South and the Midwest. These fusion
coalitions offer the only hope of reclaiming democracy from a movement of
extremism.

North Carolina's Forward Together Moral Movement organized in response to
extremism that took over the state legislature and the governor's office
in 2013. The policy agenda that the Trump administration and its enablers
in Congress are pushing today was front and center in North Carolina in
2013. Leaning into a long history of moral fusion organizing in the South,
we learned to fight reactionary extremism by highlighting how racism hurts
Black, white, and brown people regardless of their party affiliation. We
came together in mass Moral Monday rallies that showed the people of North
Carolina what uniting to move forward together could look like. We beat
voter suppression in the courts, and we beat extremism at the ballot box
in 2016's statewide races. We know fusion coalition can win in the South
... even in places that have been misidentified as "Trump country."

The vast majority of Americans do not want to capitulate to racist
demagoguery. They do not want to be pitted against one another in a
zero-sum competition. Most people are desperate for leadership that can
chart a path forward together to the multi-ethnic democracy of equal
opportunity that this nation has long aspired to become but has never yet
been.

Now is the time to unite for a mass unity and voter registration rally
focused not on any individual's campaign, but on the coalition building
that is needed to dispel the myth of a solid South and show the nation
what a better future looks like.

[ [link removed] ]Please add your name if you agree, and we'll make sure all the
candidates hear our call for unity against racism and regression and for
voter registration.

The world is asking how the candidates will respond to the open racism of
Trump's Greenville rally. We believe the answer is, "If Americans don't
like what they see in the White House, they can go door to door
registering and educating a powerful new fusion coalition to chart a new
course beyond 2020."

Whoever emerges to lead the challenge to Trump in 2020, this must be
clear: The future of democracy and the well-being of our common home on
this planet depend upon a fusion coalition that can reclaim American
democracy from the extremism that now holds power in our public life. We
believe this crisis demands that we unite to make this single message
clear.

[ [link removed] ]Click here to add your name to this petition, and then pass it along to
your friends.

Sincerely,

William J. Barber II, President, Repairers of the Breach and Co-Chair of
the Poor People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

Liz Theoharis, Co-Director of Kairos Center and Co-Chair of the Poor
People's Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival

Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, Director of the School for Conversion and
member of National Steering Committee, Poor People's Campaign: A National
Call for Moral Revival

You're receiving this petition because we thought it might interest you.
It was created on MoveOn.org, where anyone can start their own online
petitions. [ [link removed] ]You can start your own petition here.




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damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the
nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that
we must never give up on. And to do it we need your ongoing support, now
more than ever. Will you stand with us?



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