Moral March on Raleigh draws tens of thousands

Protesting against the regressive laws passed by extremists in the General Assembly last year, upwards of 80,000 people marched on the state capitol Saturday morning, according to the march’s logistics and planning experts. Called the Moral March on Raleigh, the event’s multiracial, inter-generational crowd also advanced an agenda for moral and constitutional public policy.

Convened by the North Carolina NAACP and more than 160 partner organizations in the Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) People’s Coalition, the march was the largest gathering in the South since the Selma to Montgomery March in 1965. It also marked the eighth annual convening of the HKonJ People’s Coalition, bringing together diverse voices from the civil rights, faith-based, labor, student, women’s rights, environmental protection, LGBT and immigrant justice communities.

“We are black, white, Latino, Native American,” said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, president of the NC NAACP and convener of HKonJ. “We are Democrat, Republican, independent. We are people of all faiths, and people not of faith but who believe in a moral universe. We are natives and immigrants, business leaders and workers and unemployed, doctors and the uninsured, gay and straight, students and parents and retirees. We stand here–a quilt of many colors, faiths, and creeds.”

This year’s assembly built off momentum that the Forward Together Moral Movement set in motion last year with more than 30 “Moral Mondays” demonstrations against the General Assembly’s regressive agenda.

“Every major faith tradition lifts up the high standard of justice,” said Dr. Barber, further citing the U.S. and North Carolina State Constitutions for underscoring government that is vested in the good of the whole. “When we look at these high standards for North Carolina and for America, we must declare there are those who have chosen to live, govern, and act mighty low. In policy and politics, we face two choices: One is the low road to destruction, and the other is a pathway to higher ground.

… Those of us who love freedom and justice are being called to take this state and nation from the low lands of injustice and division to higher ground.”

To get there, the NC NAACP has designed a “5-M” grassroots mobilization plan to motivate every citizen to fight against these extremist policies; meet every challenge to suppress the right to vote; mobilize all North Carolinians to the polls regardless of party affiliation; make every effort to fight in the courts against voter suppression and for the restoration of the Voting Rights Act; and move every obstacle that could keep people from voting.

“We are here to stay,” Dr. Barber said. “We have not, and will not, give up on getting to higher ground, on building a better North Carolina, a better South, and a better America. We are going to move this state forward together, and we refuse to take one step back.”

Dr. Barber also called for the first North Carolina Moral Freedom Summer in 2014. In honor of the historic Mississippi Freedom Summer 50 years ago, and in recognition of the General Assembly’s efforts to block access to the ballot, the NC NAACP, its Youth & College Division and a coalition of groups from the Forward Together Moral Movement will place young organizers in counties across the state to engage in voter mobilization and education.

“You don’t have enough political power to vote us away,” Dr. Barber warned extremist lawmakers, “enough insults to talk us away, or enough money to buy us away.”

During the Moral March, other local speakers from all corners of the state addressed a broad range of issues, including voting rights, labor rights, public education, women’s and immigrants’ rights, health care access and inequities and racial discrimination in the state’s criminal justice system.

In 2013, an extremist faction within the General Assembly chose to deny emergency unemployment benefits to 170,000 hard-working people; refused to expand Medicaid and give affordable health care to 500,000 North Carolinians; revised the tax code to raise the burden on poor and working class families while easing it for the wealthiest 11 percent and corporations; drastically cut funding from public education; repealed the Racial Justice Act; and passed a monster voter suppression law that makes it harder for people of color, the elderly and students to cast ballots.

“I’m so reminded,” Dr. Barber told the crowd as he closed, “that the moral arc of the universe is long but bends towards justice. I’m reminded if we help the poor and stop exploitation in the workplace, we will be called repairers of the breach. And the light shall shine upon you.”

As Dr. Barber addressed the People’s Assembly, the sun broke through the overcast skies, contradicting the forecasts for heavy rain and indicating that North Carolina is indeed turning towards a brighter future.