The Man Behind Moral Mondays

[wildeyed]

http://prospect.org/article/man-behind-moral-mondays#.UcBUKdX_dAY.twitter

Since they began in April, weekly “Moral Monday” protests at the North Carolina General Assembly have swelled into a movement gaining national attention. Led by the state’s charismatic NAACP president, the Reverend Doctor William Barber, progressives from across the state have come to denounce a flood of regressive legislation emanating from the Republican legislature—and in some cases, to perform acts of civil disobedience. Last Monday, in the largest Moral Monday yet, 1,400 protested and more than 80 were arrested inside the Legislative Building. In all, more than 400 have been arrested so far. Barber himself has been arrested twice at the General Assembly.

Moral Monday began as a way to call attention—both in the state and nationally— to what Barber calls a “mean-spirited quadruple attack” on the most vulnerable. This year, Republicans lawmakers have slashed unemployment benefits, raised taxes for poor and working families, rejected federal funds for Medicaid expansion, and put public schools on the chopping block along with progressive voting laws.

Long one of the South’s more moderate states, North Carolina’s rapidly diversifying population helped deliver it to Barack Obama in 2008. But two years later, fueled by the rise of the Tea Party and a spending spree by mega-conservative donor Art Pope (an ally of the Koch brothers), Republicans won majorities in the General Assembly for the first time since Reconstruction. Then, aided by new district maps that blunted the impact of minority votes, they won supermajorities and the governor’s office in 2012 and moved quickly to enact a right-wing agenda.

Barber, an evangelical preacher who comes out of the social gospel tradition, spoke to the Prospect from the office of fellow activist and religious scholar the Reverend Doctor Nancy Petty, the openly gay pastor of Raleigh’s Pullen Memorial Baptist Church. He describes how Moral Mondays emerged, what the protesters want, and how they intend to transform politics in one of the most hotly contested states in the nation.

Barber also led resistance to Amendment One. I enjoyed the reminder about the history of fusion politics in the south.

[xchrom]

1. du rec.