I got an email from commenter phoebesmother:
My sister, who lives near Chapel Hill, is involved in this movement big time (she’s been arrested and charged, but for some reason the prosecutors dropped all the charges on anyone arrested the day she was arrested, one of the early days). She called me just now to convey HOW EXCITED she is about the march this Saturday, which is a permitted march, not civil disobedience in the manner of the ongoing Moral Monday protests.
You’ve covered this movement earlier and it would be great if BJ (my constant companion) would talk it up before Saturday. She says folks are coming to Raleigh from all 50 counties and from many other states, even a busload of folks from a UU congregation in California. We know that voter suppression laws are this century’s civil rights issue and are hard to fight against. But in NC it’s every bad impulse of the Republicans, from cutting unemployment benefits and Medicaid to real aggression against teachers. She tells me the legislature has passed a “signing bonus” bribery offer to teachers, asking them to sign away their labor rights and return to “firing at will” with no recourse. She says that teachers are wearing stickers and buttons saying “decline to sign.”
Here’s more march info, and here’s why the public school teachers who are part of Reverend Barber’s coalition will be wearing those “decline to sign” buttons mentioned in the email.
On February 8, 2014, tens of thousands of people will gather at Shaw University on Wilmington St. between South St. and MLK Jr. Blvd. at 9:00 a.m. in downtown Raleigh. We will march around 10:30 a.m. after which we will begin the mass people’s assembly on the doorstep of the State Capitol.
For the past seven years, a fusion movement has been growing in North Carolina. In 2006, the Historic Thousands on Jones St. (HKonJ) People’s Assembly Coalition was formed under the leadership of Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II and the North Carolina NAACP. It has grown to include over 150 coalition partners.
If you go to the march (and if you’re in North Carolina I hope you do go) remember to “wear red for public ed”.