How Tar Heels will remember Rev. B best: preaching it to thousands of us outside the state's General Assembly, inspiring us to lives of action. DC's flying monkeys will never know what hit 'em.

The Raleigh News and Observer reports this morning that in a conference call last night, Rev. Dr. William J Barber announced he will hand over his 12 year leadership of the North Carolina NAACP in June to focus on his new organization, Repairers of the Breach.

The Rev. William Barber, who led the state NAACP in blocking North Carolina's attempts to limit voting rights and fiercely supported gay rights, said he's stepping down as state chapter president and will focus on a poor people's campaign like the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was building when he was slain.

Barber also leads a nonprofit called Repairers of the Breach and said that group, along with the Kairos Center, Union Theological Seminary and others will lead a movement that will concentrate on 25 states and the nation's capital where voter suppression, poverty and other problems are prevalent. The groups plan major actions next summer, which would mark the 50th anniversary of the start of King's campaign in 1968. Barber said more details would be forthcoming at a news conference Monday.

While this news may seem sudden, it’s a move that has been long in the planning. We Tar Heels will certainly miss his constant presence by our side, but we’re delighted to be sharing him now with the rest of America, and the rest of the Resistance.

Forward together. The rest of y’all take care of Rev. B for us now, hear? And show up!

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; you shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of streets to live in. — Isaiah 58:12

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