Yesterday, Moral Monday gathered for the fourth straight week to protest the General
Assembly’s austere cuts that will hurt poor North Carolinians.
This week’s march focused on worker’s rights, highlighting the participation of labor unions, NC Raise Up, teachers, and women’s groups.
Youth organizers also kicked off a “Moral Freedom Summer”
timed with the 50th anniversary of the original Freedom Summer.
Paid organizers will be sent to 50 NC counties to encourage voter
participation in the wake of the GA’s redistricting scheme.
After the rally on Halifax Mall, Moral Monday protestors entered the legislative building
and went up to the second floor to sing and chat outside the chambers where the Senate was in session.
GA police instructed protestors to leave. 20 protestors who stayed
and continued singing and chanting outside the golden Senate doors were arrested.
On Monday afternoon, just before Moral Monday, a Wake County Superior Court judge issueda temporary restraining order on some of the new Legislative Building rules passed to target Moral Monday—particularly the provision requiring citizens to talk in a “normal voice” and preventing them from blocking doors or entryways. It’s unclear how the presence of the restraining order against 3 parts of building provisions will affect the arrests.
The 20 arrestees were charged with 2nd degree trespass, with
the last being released in the early hours of Tuesday morning. A spokesperson for Moral Monday said that she hadn’t spoken to the NAACP legal team yet about whether they would
contest the arrests.
