A month later, Barber told RNS, Pearson asked him to come speak at a rally in Memphis hosted by the MCAP and the Tennessee chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign.
“If God be for us, it doesn’t matter if the whole world is against us,” Barber declared to the crowd at the rally. “Not here. Not Now. Not on our watch.”
Pearson and his fellow advocates went on to defeat the pipeline, and when he was elected to the state House, he listed affiliation with the Poor People’s Campaign in his official biography.
Things may come full circle for Pearson and Jones on Monday, when Barber and others are holding a major Moral Mondays protest in Nashville — an event, which Jones helped promote in a joint MSNBC appearance with Barber over the weekend, that happens to coincide with the 10-year anniversary of the first Moral Mondays protest.
As lawmakers potentially debate gun-related legislation inside the Tennessee State Capitol, faith leaders from across the religious spectrum plan to join other gun control advocates to march from a Methodist church and into the Capitol building carrying caskets designed for children to highlight the victims of gun violence.
Among those marching will be McIntyre, who hopes the attention will help others across the country understand why so many Tennessee faith leaders like herself feel compelled to pursue activism in the first place.
“There are so many organizers, so many faith leaders, so many amazing organizations in Nashville and across the state doing really, really hard and powerful work,” she said. “I hope the nation sees how difficult this work has been.”
This article originally appeared here.
