Rev. Barber’s ex wants divorce court to see if he mixed his money with nonprofit’s
The former wife of civil rights and anti-poverty activist the Rev. William Barber II has asked a judge to look into the finances of Barber’s nonprofit, Repairers of the Breach, claiming Barber may have mixed its funds with his.
In filings in Durham County District Court, Rebecca Barber says the organization deposited money into a joint banking account of the Barbers, and that William Barber used that money to pay his ex-wife alimony or support. Because of those deposits, she says, Repairers of the Breach and its funds should be treated as a third party — like another spouse — in the Barbers’ ongoing dispute over property division.
A review of the organization’s books is necessary to see whether Barber has mixed his and the organization’s funds, Rebecca Barber alleges, and whether she is entitled to a share of those funds, which total in the millions of dollars.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, chairman of the 10-member board of Repairers of the Breach, says the organization has no reason to believe its founder, president and senior lecturer has done anything improper but will hire an outside firm to audit its books and review its processes.
Rebecca Barber’s filings offer no evidence in support of her claims.
In court filings of his own, William Barber denies all his ex-wife’s allegations. He said this week he couldn’t comment on the legal case and referred questions to his attorney and to Wilson-Hartgrove.
The lawyer, Tamela Wallace of Charlotte, said Thursday, “The allegations of financial improprieties made against Bishop William Barber in the motions filed by his ex-wife are not true. We believe the false claims were made in an attempt to leverage a strategic advantage in the property division litigation.
“Bishop Barber has the utmost confidence in the ability of the judicial system to resolve this property division matter without regard to such diversionary tactics. Therefore he intends to litigate the validity of these claims in a court of law, not the court of public opinion. It is also his desire to navigate this property division dispute to its inevitable legal conclusion in a private and caring manner to insulate the parties and their family from any harm associated with unnecessary public discord.”
Rebecca Barber’s attorney did not return calls seeking comment.
The end of a decades-long marriage
William Barber met Rebecca McLean while they were both students at N.C. Central University. They married in Durham in August 1987. According to court filings, Rebecca Barber adopted a child of William Barber’s from a previous relationship when the couple wed, and they had four more children together, all now grown.
They lived in Wayne County, where William Barber became pastor in 1993 of Greenleaf Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and his wife, who worked as a psychiatric nurse, was celebrated as the church’s “First Lady.”
The Barbers separated in October 2022, the filings say, with intentions to divorce.
Barber, now 61, announced in December 2022 he was retiring from Greenleaf to become the founding director and a professor at the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at the Yale Divinity School while continuing his work with Repairers of the Breach. Rebecca Barber took early retirement from nursing in December 2023.
Mecklenburg County court records show William Barber filed for divorce in Charlotte in July 2024, but later dropped that case and refiled in Durham where both he and Rebecca Barber now live.
In the legal back-and-forth, both William Barber and Rebecca Barber say the other “abandoned” their spouse by creating “intolerable” conditions that caused them to split.
A judge granted the divorce in November, but the Barbers were unable to agree on financial terms even with the use of a mediator.
William Barber remarried May 3, to the Rev. Dr. Della Jane Owens.
Owens was once an associate pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church and is now senior pastor at St. James Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Wilson. Her Facebook profile as of May 28 said she was a former police records manager for Garner and later for the City of Durham.
She also previously served as head of security for Repairers of the Breach and sometimes drove Barber to appearances. She no longer works for the organization.
Money is at the heart of the dispute
According to its federal Form 990, available on Pro Publica’s Nonprofit Explorer, Repairers of the Breach paid Rev. Barber more than $224,000 in salary in 2023, the most recent report available.
In her filings, Rebecca Barber says that her now-ex-husband has been paying support to her since at least November 2023, primarily from a $7,000 monthly deposit Repairers of the Breach places into a joint account of the Barbers’ “under the guise of alimony or financial support.”
Rebecca Barber claims that William Barber “maintains de facto control over the financial accounts” of Repairers of the Breach and is using the organization as an instrument of his personal financial affairs.
In additional filings made Friday, Wallace, William Barber’s attorney, says Repairers of the Breach pays Barber’s salary in twice-monthly installments of $9,357. Barber has directed that $3,500 of each payment be deposited into the joint account with his former wife as alimony, the documents say, for a total of $7,000 each month.
“These facts were well known before the allegations … shamelessly and/or recklessly suggested otherwise,” Wallace wrote, citing 32 months of pay stubs she said had been shared with Rebecca Barber’s attorney.
Wilson-Hartgrove, the board chair, said Repairers of the Breach pays for annual audits and is unaware of any issues, including with direct deposits to William Barber.
The board convened an emergency meeting to discuss the allegations after they were first reported by WRAL on May 23, Wilson-Hartgrove said.
“These are serious allegations and we believe them to be baseless, based on conversations with our staff,” he said. “But we are instigating an independent investigation to look into it. We want that to be very carefully documented and verified by someone outside our staff. We want to wait until we get that report.”
Wallace also asked Friday that Rebecca Barber be stopped from using the discovery process “to embarrass” her ex-husband, and that she be ordered not to disseminate financial documents or other sensitive materials with anyone outside the litigation.
Meanwhile, Wallace attached in the filings copies of Rebecca Barber’s financial affidavit prepared for the case showing recurring monthly expenses of more than $10,000.
What does Repairers of the Breach do?
Barber launched the group in 2015 on the momentum of the North Carolina Forward Together Moral Movement, which held rallies and protests to draw attention to legislative policies that organizers saw as punitive to poor and vulnerable people. Still based in North Carolina, it’s now a nationally known nonprofit that includes community organizers, interfaith clergy members, artists and others.
This spring, Repairers of the Breach kicked off “Moral Mondays in DC,” gatherings in Washington in opposition to proposed federal policies it says benefit corporations and the wealthy at the expense of the poor. Those include the budget bill passed on May 22 by the U.S. House that would make permanent the 2017 tax cuts passed during President Donald Trump’s first term and would cut Medicaid coverage and funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Barber and two other clergy members who went into the U.S. Capitol to pray about the budget deliberations during a Moral Mondays event on April 28 were arrested after they ignored Capitol Police officers’ instructions to leave.
Repairers of the Breach is funded mostly through private donations. Wilson-Hartgrove said the group’s budget is larger in years when it is mobilizing activists across the country around nationwide issues, and smaller when the work scales down.
In 2023, according to its 990 form, the group had revenues of more than $5 million. Its expenses that year were more than $6 million, but it had reserves and ended the year with a fund balance of more than $8 million.
Wilson-Hartgrove, a writer, preacher and assistant director for partnerships and fellowships at the Public Theology center at Yale, said Rebecca Barber’s allegations will not interrupt the group’s work.
“Repairers will continue to do the work that we feel called to in this moment,” he said. “We have a Moral Monday coming up in D.C. this coming Monday. If anything, I hope anybody who pays attention to this attempt to smear our organization will pay closer attention to the work that we’re doing. Because the work is important.”
This story was originally published May 30, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Rev. Barber’s ex wants divorce court to see if he mixed his money with nonprofit’s."
