I watched all of the speeches of both the RNC and DNC Conventions over the past two weeks. Many of these speeches occured during the day on cable channels to which not everyone in America has access, nor does everyone have access to the Internet. The networks only cover the prime time speeches (I miss the old days of “gavel to gavel coverage” when the networks did actual news reporting).
There have bee some excellent speeches, largely at the DNC Convention, which many Americans did not see and that did not receive the attention due from our feckless media.
Day four of the DNC Convention is a good example. The Rev. William Barber II from the North Carolina NAACP and the Moral Mondays movement gave a rousing speech that brought the house to its feet. The Rev. William Barber dropped the mic:
Well America, what the Rev. William Barber II stopped by the Democratic National Convention Thursday night to tell you was just about the most engaging version of everything that every other speaker touched on over the course of the four day event.
What he delivered — eight years after this brand of liberation theology took a beating from uninformed corners of the conservative commentariat — was evidence of a long tradition of liberal, religious patriotism. It was a call to action that, in Barber’s view, serves this cause — an articulation of a liberal and patriotic philosophy with what Barber said was the moral force to shock and resuscitate the heart of the nation.
“We are being called like our forefathers and foremothers to be the moral defibrillators of our time,” Barber said.
The call brought most of the audience in the convention hall to its feet.
Here is a video link, Reverend William Barber – Full Speech Democratic Convention 2016 and a Transcript from Daily Kos.
Read more
Linda Lyon covered this in her post below, but here are the links that media reports have been leaving out.
