13:21

The Guardian’s Oliver Laughland reports from Goldsboro, North Carolina - a city bracing for potentially catastrophic flooding.

Sunday service at the Greenleaf Christian church was cancelled today. The church’s pastor is the world famous civil rights leader William Barber, who was forced to evacuate his 86-year-old mother further west to the city of Greensboro.



Barber, who is leading a nationwide civil rights movement, The Poor People’s Campaign, told the Guardian that Florence highlighted the region’s racial and economic inequality.

The city of Goldsboro is home to one of North Carolina’s coal-ash dumps, which was flooded during hurricane Matthew in 2016, leading to pollution of the Neuse River

“We talk about racism when Charlottesville happens, or racism when Rosanne Barr say something foolish, but what about the racism and the classism when you look at where these coal-ash sites are that leak and spill during natural disasters?” Barber said on the phone from Washington DC.

“What about the racism and classism that’s at work in the south when many elected officials get elected because of voter suppression and gerrymandering? And then get elected and enact policies that deny people healthcare, which is so important in the aftermath of these disasters?”

Oliver Laughland (@oliverlaughland) Here in Goldsboro at the church of @RevDrBarber where Sunday service was cancelled as the area braces for potential flooding. Some congregants are getting ready to hand out free meals to local kids who will miss out if school is closed. (Cc @holpuch) pic.twitter.com/l7vCVuhbth

Barber said he plans to return to Goldsboro soon to oversee outreach efforts his staff are working in. The church, which services some of the poorest residents in the city, will hand out free meals to children who would usually receive food during school, which is likely to be closed on Monday.

“For many of these kids, those school meals are the best or only meal they get a day,” Barber said.

“We are a poor, low wealth church, for the most part. We’re not a congregation of lawyers and doctors, for the most part - although they’d be welcome,” he added.

“I have members who live in rental housing that were afraid their housing was going to get destroyed during this particular hurricane. Thank god it lowered down to a category 1. If it were a category 3 or 4 a number of my members would be out of home.”



