At the last “Moral Monday” in Raleigh, Reverend Barber returned to his favorite card in the deck and gave a speech about Trayvon Martin.  In the press release that accompanied the video, the NC NAACP boasted:

Less than 48 hours after the verdict in the murder of Trayvon Martin, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II flew back to NC from the National NAACP Convention to deliver a personal and passionate message to the Moral Monday 11 gathering at the NC General Assembly.

Yes, he dashed back to take advantage of this tragedy to score political points. Not something I would have bragged about. If that introduction wasn’t bad enough, the speech itself was far worse. Barber describes in his speech about what happened to Martin was a “lynching” and compares the verdict to Emmett Till in 1955:

Fourteen-year-old Emmett Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi on August 24, 1955 when he reportedly flirted with a white cashier at a grocery store. Four days later, two white men kidnapped Till, beat him, and shot him in the head. The men were tried for murder, but an all-white, male jury acquitted them. Till’s murder and open casket funeral galvanized the emerging civil rights movement.

How repugnant is this comparison, not to mention irresponsibly misleading?

This is the face of “Moral Monday”?

Here’s the video:

This is not the first time Barber has politicized this case, it won’t be the last.

Related:

Raleigh NAACP & Occupy Jump On Trayvon Martin Bandwagon

Playing the Bus Card?

UPDATE: Bill Whittle’s Afterburner, The Lynching, opens up with a reference to this very speech. Watch the video: