Mondays are usually associated with resentment and a lack of enthusiasm. The perception is that no one likes going to work on Mondays. That may hold true for normal jobs, but in the last month in Raleigh, a new Monday calling has emerged and been drawing in more and more people each time.
In response to the nearly 2,000 bills the state Republican supermajority has proposed since the end of January, the North Carolina chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and its coalition partners have called for acts of civil disobedience every Monday in the N.C. State Legislature. Since the first Moral Monday on April 29, 153 people have gotten arrested for entering and refusing to leave the legislative building or “the people’s house.” 17 people, including two N.C. State students, one N.C. State professor and NC NAACP head Rev. William Barber were arrested on the first demonstration. The next two followed with 30 and 49 arrests respectively, which included one N.C. State professor on May 13.
The most recent demonstration this Monday brought in 57 people willing to get arrested. More than 500 people gathered outside the legislature for this protest, and hundreds also entered the legislature, standing in the rotunda outside the senate chamber in solidarity with those getting arrested. Each time, many N.C. State students and faculty, apart from the arrestees, have shown up. The NAACP expects that the next Moral Monday, on June 3 after Memorial Day, will be a “super-Moral Monday.”
Among the new policies that are being considered or have already been implemented by the N.C. government are: Voter suppression hurting minorities, low-income voters and students; cutbacks on environmental regulation; reductions in Medicaid and women’s ability to access reproductive healthcare; cuts to public education; elimination of public financing for judicial elections; and finally, a topsy-turvy tax plan that would slash personal and corporate income tax, while increasing sales tax and taxing vital consumption.
Technician believes that things are going in the wrong direction with the government, but in the right direction with how people are responding to it. A report by Public Policy Polling showed that only 10 percent of North Carolinians are in support of Senate’s tax plan, which would ensure that lower income people would have to pay a larger share of what they earn for basic necessities than already-financially-secure higher income people. Still, it’s the people not getting arrested in the legislature who have the final word, and right now, the state of affairs in North Carolina is tilted against ordinary people more than in any conservative state in the country.
The News & Observer, after the third string of arrests, wrote: “The people getting arrested in waves at the General Assembly are carrying a message from many thousands of North Carolinians. They represent not only those who need government services, but those who believe the legislature is breaking the traditions and reversing the gains of a great and enlightened state.”
We as well salute those who have been engaging in peaceful civil disobedience against the state government, and encourage more N.C. State people to participate in the rising tide of demonstrations.
