Since 2012, when North Carolina elected a Republican governor and a Republican majority in the General Assembly, which was first won during the tea party sweep of 2010, grew to a super-majority, the North Carolina GOP has been moving with extreme fervor to rewrite the state’s laws.
Empowered for the first time since 1870 with full control of the state government, some of the “revisions” the North Carolina Republicans push through were the ending of long-term unemployment benefits, the declining of the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, the elimination of the state’s earned-income tax credit and one of the nation’s worst suite of voter suppression laws, targeted almost exclusively toward traditional Democratic voters.
State Republicans justify this by alleging that the state is heavily gerrymandered to favor Democrats and that, because of this, the view of the state’s majority, the Republicans, have been suppressed until now.
Prior to the Republican takeover, North Carolina was a bluish-purple state since 1900, and there has been only four Republican governors in the state. Due to its high minority and educated populations, North Carolina was one of the few Southern states the Democrats could rely on in national elections. The Republicans, in 2012, entered into power with the announced intention of “putting North carolina back in play again” — willingly and knowingly warping the political playing field to prevent the Democratic majority from reasserting itself in the state again.
In response to this, religious and civil leaders, including the Rev. William Barber, state president of the NAACP, have organized civil disobedience protests in condemnation of the Republican leadership. Originally gathering every week outside the General Assembly, the “Moral Mondays” protests have gained international recognition and support, despite the fact that the protests have been met with mass arrests and a denouncement from the governor, who has called the protests “illegal” and a burden on the courts and law enforcement.
More than 930 people have been arrested for participating in the protests. In December, Barber and 11 other defendants were found guilty of second-degree trespassing and violating building rules — resulting in a $100 fine and the paying of court costs. Despite this, the “Moral Monday” protesters conducted a moral march in January, are planning a second moral march later this month, have continued their weekly protests — moving the protest site around the state, with Fayetteville being the current host city — and have seen the movement spread to Georgia in opposition of that state’s governor rejecting the medicaid expansion.
A parallel “Truthful Tuesday” movement has sprung up in South Carolina last month, as well.
Both the protestors and critics of the protests admit that the Republicans in power are unlikely to be affected by the protests. Many state conservatives have argued that Barber and the protesters speak for the state’s Democratic party, and that the “Moral Mondays” protests are purely a political attack. Barber, on the other hand, contends that the protests started well before the Republicans gained a majority in the state legislature.
“We are not dealing with Republicans,” said Barber. “It’s not about Republicans or Democrats. It’s about extremists trying to hijack this state.”
The “Moral Mondays” protests are conducted by the Historic Thousands on Jones Street People’s Assembly Coalition, which was founded in December 2006 under Barber. It has successfully advocated for the passage of the Racial Justice Act, same day voting and a veto on the voter I.D. laws passage effort and helped to unionize Smithfield’s plant workers. Many of the issues that it has worked on in the past are being directly challenged under current N.C. Governor Pat McCrory’s administration.