The Moral Monday demonstration outside Memphis City Hall was billed as a rally against what organizers called President Trump’s “big, bad, ugly, deadly, destructive” budget bill.
But Monday’s protest looked like a funeral, and in many ways, it was.
Under sweltering midday heat, hundreds of “mourners” processed solemnly across Civic Center Plaza carrying simple wooden caskets toward a podium set up in front of City Hall. The caskets symbolized the lives organizers say will be lost due to deep cuts to Medicaid under the recently passed legislation.
From there, speakers delivered sweeping moral indictments condemning Trump and U.S. lawmakers for what they termed murder by policy.
‘Policy murder’
“Whenever you do something and you know it’s going to kill somebody, that’s not manslaughter — that’s murder. Policy murder,” said the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign and leader of the national Moral Mondays movement.
“This bill will create a hospital apocalypse. Over 700 rural hospitals are already at risk of closing; and 338 more are now at risk because of this bill,” said Barber of North Carolina. “About 51,000 people will die in the first year because of this bill. That’s not from me — that’s Yale and the University of Pennsylvania.
“When you know the bill will kill somebody, and you still pass it — that’s not economics,” Barber said. “That’s moral bankruptcy.”
Barber’s comments were anchored in numbers and names. According to the campaign’s analysis, more than 1.5 million people across 11 Southern states stand to lose health care coverage under the bill’s Medicaid rollbacks. In Tennessee alone, 68,000 people could be pushed off the rolls — 18% of the state’s population currently relies on Medicaid. Other regional numbers shared included:
- Arkansas: 123,000 expected to lose coverage (out of 740,000 total enrollees — 24% of the state’s population).
- Mississippi: 34,000 expected to lose coverage (out of 518,000 enrolled — 18% of the population).
“These aren’t (just) numbers,” Barber said, asking demonstrators to raise their hands if they received Medicaid or knew someone who does. “They’re members of your congregation. They’re your neighbors. They’re your students, your veterans, your essential workers. And in too many cases, they’re your kin.”
‘A big, bad, ugly, deadly, destructive bill’
The demonstration in Memphis was part of a broader multi-state Moral Mondays tour organized by Repairers of the Breach, the Poor People’s Campaign and allied faith-based groups with the intent of holding elected leaders and government accountable to enact a moral agenda that responds to the needs of the poor.
Over the course of several weeks, the campaign is holding coordinated actions in 11 Southern states, including Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas, to protest the federal budget passed earlier this year with strong Republican support.
That legislation, championed by President Trump and approved by narrow margins in Congress, dramatically slashes funding for Medicaid, SNAP benefits and other essential social programs, while simultaneously increasing funding for military and immigration enforcement.
Barber explicitly told people not to refer to it in the same flowery way Trump would prefer. “It’s a big, bad, ugly, deadly, destructive bill, that’s what it is,” Barber said as the crowd roared.
According to campaign leaders, the bill includes $150 billion for masked immigration raids, deep tax cuts for the wealthy and new fossil fuel subsidies, while it cuts back on health care and food assistance for the poor.
“This is the largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich since chattel slavery,” Barber said. “This bill says the poorest 20% of households will pay $1,000 more a year. The wealthiest will get $300,000 in tax breaks. This bill invests $150 billion to hire more masked agents to raid immigrant communities.”
‘There is no safety’
“There is no safety,” said the Rev. Lori Tapia, national pastor of Obra Hispana, as she stood before the crowd on Civic Center Plaza. “There is no safety when mothers are being torn from the arms of their babies in the streets. There is no safety when children are coming home from school to find their parents vanished.”
Tapia, who grew up on the border between Arizona and Mexico, spoke of falling in love with her husband “through a hole in the fence,” and said the nation’s current immigration practices are not about security but terror.
“There is no safety when 200 farm workers are chased down with tear gas and arrested by ICE with children watching, screaming, choking on the smoke,” she stated. “There is no safety when entire families are being erased from neighborhoods that once echoed with their laughter, their work, their worship.”
Then Tapia introduced Valeria, a 16-year-old Latina from California who stepped forward holding two black silhouettes, cardboard cutouts in the shape of human profiles representing those who could not safely speak for themselves. “The worry of us having our parents not home when we come back from school is something unimaginable,” the teenager said. “I never thought I’d have to experience it. They have not done anything illegal. Nothing wrong. Yet they are being chased by ICE.
“I worry at school my phone’s gonna get a text,” she said, holding back emotion. “My parents are like, ‘Don’t worry about it, we’re fine.’ But I do worry. I don’t know how I’m gonna do it without my parents. I need them — wherever I go.”
Her faith helps her get through.
“God can do anything,” she said, her voice quivering near the end. “He can protect us. He can save us. And He will turn this country around.”
‘I may not look like what I’ve been through’
The Rev. Regina Clark, a Memphis-area minister and educator, stepped up to share her testimony.
“Domestic violence survivor. That’s me. Single parent. That’s me. Unhoused for over 10 months. That’s me, too,” said Clark, who added she holds two master’s degrees, but still relies on SNAP benefits and has faced housing insecurity. “Do you know what it’s like to hold two master’s degrees, be called ‘Reverend,’ and still need food stamps?”
“This law doesn’t just attack our stomachs, it attacks our souls,” she said. “It doesn’t just cut benefits, it cuts our ability to serve. When you strip away someone’s food security, you strip away their strength to lift others. When you make health care inaccessible, you make it impossible for people like me to stay healthy enough to serve our communities.”
Clark’s testimony ended in a call to stand together: “We are your teachers, your ministers, your students and your neighbors. We are the ones holding your community together. And this bill seeks to tear us apart.”
‘Work of the church’ is speaking up for the poor
Throughout the rally, Barber returned to the church’s role in standing with the poor.
“Jesus didn’t get crucified for preaching about private sin,” he said. “He got crucified for turning over the money tables. For challenging the unholy alliance between religious nationalism and greed.”
He quoted the Rev. Dr. James Lawson, saying mass rallies are important not just for protest, but for mass education: “If you come to the rally and go home and be quiet … you’ve got poetry without praxis. The Gospel says be doers of the word, not hearers only.”
Then he turned to the clergy.
“Pastors, have you done a survey of your congregation?” he asked. “Have you really found out how many of your members are poor or on Medicaid or going without food?”
Barber called on religious leaders to go beyond the pulpit and into the neighborhoods around them. “We can no longer ask people to come into church and play and be phony. They must come just as they are. And we must serve them as they are.”
Delivering the caskets
After the speeches, a quiet procession began across Civic Center Plaza toward the Odell Horton Federal Building, where Sen. Bill Hagerty’s local office is located. At the front of the line, clergy and activists carried the wooden caskets.
Their intention: to deliver the caskets and campaign materials directly to the senator’s office, as a symbolic act of witness and warning.
But the group was stopped at the building’s rear entrance. It was not open to the public. Security officers eventually directed the delegation to the front entrance, where they were again restricted — no coffins allowed, no cameras inside.
A small group of faith leaders and campaign representatives were allowed in to deliver a letter and pray with Hagerty’s staff.
Others remained outside, circling the caskets with flyers and singing spirituals.
‘We will not sit here and die’
As the rally concluded, Barber reminded the crowd that the fight didn’t end in Memphis nor at the federal building doors.
“They want us divided. But we will not be divided,” he said. “Cancer doesn’t kill you Black or white or brown. It just kills you. If you can’t pay your light bill, we’re all Black in the dark. So we might as well be together in the light.”
“Fighting for health care is life. Fighting for immigrants is life. Fighting for food and housing is life,” Barber said. “And death is no longer an option. We will not sit here and die.”
