Fourteen Moral Monday protesters were arrested in the N.C. Legislative Building at 2 a.m. Wednesday and were charged with refusing to leave Speaker of the House Thom Tillis’ office, but not before ordering pizza and setting up sleeping bags at the scene. 

The arrests came about seven hours after Sergeant-At-Arms Clyde Cook Jr. ordered a cease and desist, but the protestors refused to leave, saying they were prepared to stay all night if they weren’t forced to leave. 

The protestors were charged with second-degree trespassing, a misdemeanor. Tillis failed to appear in his office during any portion of the protest. 

Rev. William Barber II, the head of the state NAACP and leading face of the demonstrations, spoke to a crowd of more than 60 people before the protest and was present outside of Tillis’ office, encouraging the protestors inside and speaking to the police and gathered crowd, for much of the evening’s demonstration. 

The protestors inside Tillis’ office remained until the arrests were made in the early morning. Police asked the demonstrators to leave several times throughout the evening, warning them that they were subject to arrest. 

“Speaker Thom Tillis and his aides have refused to engage in a serious discussion over the deep and weighty issues, and now they are playing a waiting game in hopes that we will lose heart, pack up and go home,” Barber said in a statement several hours after the sit-in began. “But we are not here to play games. These are serious, life-and-death questions.”

During the sit-in, singing, clapping and chanting could be heard throughout the legislative building.

Several of the people inside of Tillis’ office and many who attended the rally before the protest were members of N.C. Raise Up, an organization advocating to raise the minimum wage and obtain more rights for fast-food workers. 

“When Martin Luther King marched on Washington, he demanded a $2.50 minimum wage,” said Lindsey Ware, a spokeswoman for N.C. Raise Up. “And in that bill, he said each year it was supposed to go up with inflation. Minimum wage hasn’t gone up in North Carolina in 5 years, and it’s not fair to these low wage workers.” 

Ware said the organization has been present at many of the Moral Monday protests in North Carolina, as well as demonstrations in other states, including Georgia and South Carolina. 

“I think the system is messed up,” Ware said. “I think getting the minimum wage changed is just a stepping stone to get more stuff changed within the industry.”