Rev. William Barber, a social justice advocate and former North Carolina National Association for the Advancement of Colored People president, spoke at UNC's Weil Lecture on American Citizenship Wednesday.
UNC's Institute for the Arts and Humanities hosted the event. Barber's speech focused on the country's current problems and potential solutions.
Mark Katz, director of the Institute for the Arts and Humanities, was key to the organization of the event.
“The Weil Lecture on American Citizenship is about asking the question 'What does it mean to be an American citizen?' And I feel like each speaker throughout the years has answered this question differently,” he said.
Don Holmes, a fourth-year Ph.D. student at UNC studying English and comparative literature, said he attended the lecture because he wanted to hear Barber's perspective and better understand his ideas.
“Dr. Barber is the closest thing we have to Martin Luther King Jr. alive today, especially with his ideals," he said.
Holmes said he expected to hear a well thought out plan with solutions.
"That’s the kind of man I see Barber as, a man that comes with issues but also ways that we can fix it,” he said.
Barber began his speech by identifying some of America's current problems.
