Nearly a month after the final Moral Monday protest in Raleigh drew more than 5,000 people to Halifax Mall, the movement returned to the General Assembly. Though now under a different name and considerably smaller, a crowd of protesters gathered on the steps of the State Legislative Building Tuesday afternoon preparing to enter the legislature with a different objective than before— to deliver report cards.
The report cards, which were prepared by Democracy North Carolina, a nonpartisan political research organization, and the North Carolina chapter of the Nation Association for the Advancement of Colored People, rated the voting record of state legislators regarding 20 laws the Forward Together Movement deemed “bad laws,” and the grades are in.
Tax law changes, the denial of Medicaid for the poor, voter ID laws and pro-gun legislation were among the “bad laws” Barber and the Forward Together Movement berated.
Report card in hand, the Rev. William J. Baber stood in front of legislature and pointed to the red letter F stamped at the top of each report card as he broke down law by law what he called a historical failure on the behalf of state lawmakers.
“We graded everybody because we’re nonpartisan. Republican or Democrat, we graded you,” Barber said. “What they are doing—we’ve said over and over again—is constitutionally inconsistent, morally indefensible and economically insane.”
According to Barber, the movement has printed more than 500,000 report cards with the intentions of distributing them to “as many North Carolinians as possible.” Barber also said the digital version of the report card, which is available to read online, has received nearly 1 million hits on the movement’s social media sites.
After traveling across the state handing out these report cards, Barber said popular reaction, regardless of people’s political views, was almost unanimous.
“Everywhere they go and show report cards, both republicans and democrats are outraged,” Barber said. “I was in Mitchell County—99 percent white, 89 percent republican—we showed this report card, and they were outraged.”
Despite what Barber described as widespread interest in the Forward Together Movement’s report cards, a few people seemed rather uninterested in them on Tuesday.
Though the date and time of this protest were announced days in advance, neither Speaker of the House Thom Tillis nor Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger were in their offices when Barber and his followers arrived to present the legislators with their grades.
