Not Everyone Was Surprised by the Attack on the Capitol

Rev. William Barber II at an interfaith service in 2020.Amy Katz/Zuma

Let our journalists help you make sense of the noise: Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily newsletter and get a recap of news that matters.The January 6 attack on the Capitol was, for many Americans, an unthinkable and shocking attack on democracy. For the Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, it was old hat.
“I was just screaming at the TV when people said, ‘We’ve never seen this but twice in America,’” Barber said in a conversation with Mother Jones earlier this month. “Are you out of your mind? Poor folk, Black folk, labor, people fighting for women’s suffrage, abolitionists all knew this mob violence, this attack on our bodies and sacred place.”
“What we saw, what the world saw,” he said, “was what finally happens when you seed racism and lies.”
In a wide-ranging discussion of America’s reckoning for racial justice amid a pandemic that has disproportionately infected and killed people of color, Barber, who is the co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, is joined by his two daughters, social epidemiologist Dr. Sharrelle Barber and public policy graduate student Rebekah Barber. The discussion, hosted by Mother Jones columnist and reporter Nathalie Baptiste, was originally recorded on February 4.
Watch the full conversation below: