RALEIGH-DURHAM, NC —Nine months after weekly protests at the North Carolina Legislature, the Moral Monday/Forward Together Movement is in motion again. Last year, 940 people were arrested. They were outraged by the draconian measures enacted by the Tea Party majority with the support of a Republican governor. Guided by ideology and the financial backing of North Carolina millionaire Art Pope and the Koch brothers, they enacted austerity measures that are devastating the people.
Among the changes is a racist voter suppression law with ID requirements and a reduction in the length of early voting. This is aimed at discouraging Black voters from coming out on Election Day. Other measures included not extending unemployment benefits for 70,000 workers and reducing the amount of benefits and the duration from 26 weeks to from 12-20 weeks. The state also rejected the expansion of the Medicaid program to 500,000 uninsured North Carolinians. There were also attacks on women’s reproductive rights and teacher tenure.
The movement is built on the foundations of six years of protest and organizing by a coalition led by the NAACP, civil rights and labor groups. The weekly protests ended but were followed by 30 local Moral Monday events around the state. The movement has also spread around the country with movements surfacing in Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama and Tennessee. Moral Monday leader, Rev. William Barber II has been the featured speaker at events in other states. The resistance inspires people in their struggles with governments and corporations as capitalism worsens.
Just ahead of the opening of this year’s legislative short session, legislators developed a new set of regulations to shut down the impending protest. They added language to the building rules that prohibit making noise and causing a disturbance.
In a bold tactical move on the first Monday of the session, Rev. Barber announced that one time and one time only the demonstrators would remain silent to show the world how the right-wing legislators were willing to silence democracy.
Several thousand lined up outside the General Assembly. The slogan, Repent, Repeal and Restore was the basis for the speeches made by health care workers and family members without healthcare, students and teachers, workers and labor leaders.
Saladin Muhammad a retired organizer for the United Electrical Workers Union called on the crowd to “follow the example of the low wage fast food workers and speak truth to power.” He ended his speech by asking for a moment of silence for an “African-American labor leader, General Gordon Baker, whose life exemplifies the courage, determination and will of working people to fight until justice is won.”
After the speeches, the participants put tape over their mouths and filed into the General Assembly. They climbed the steps to the Rotunda, some with signs but all silent, and filed out of the building to a short rally. Again, they vowed that would be the last time they would be silent.
Many arrestees from last years’ actions were found guilty. There is a campaign to drop the charges against all arrestees led by the Southern Workers Assembly http://southernworker.org/email-and-petitions/dropmoralmondayscharges/ and supported by the US Human Rights Network http://www.ushrnetwork.org/take-action/sign-petition-drop-all-charges-against-moral-monday-arrestees.
