Members of the N.C. Legislative Black Caucus show their support for protesters and those arrested for walking into "The People's House" (N.C. General Assembly) and refusing to leave.
First busload of arrestees is driven to Raleigh Correction Center past the hundreds of protesters on the street.
Supported by a crowd of more than 500 people filling the mall area outside the N.C. General Assembly in Raleigh, 57 people were arrested for civil disobedience at the legislative building this afternoon and evening -- arrests of people peaceably assembled and singing songs of peace and unity to protest the ALEC-ification of our state. This brings the total number of civil-disobedience arrests so far to 153, including 17 arrests April 29, 30 arrests on May 6, 49 arrests on May 13, and 57 arrests today (May 20).
Brigette Burge, second from right, celebrates her birthday by stepping forward as a civil disobedience arrestee at the N.C. General Assembly on May 20, 2013.
More arrests are expected on June 3, which is expected to be a "super-Moral Monday" called by the N.C. NAACP and its coalition partners. These acts of civil disobedience are in protest of the Republican supermajority's ramrodding of nearly 2,000 bills -- many of them designed to decimate public education, deny/restrict access to health insurance, kneecap labor rights, seize local control from elected municipal governments, restrict women's access to reproductive healthcare, expand firearms permissions, eviscerate oversight boards, permit exploitation of public lands, implement "fracking" and other environmental abuses, and suppress voter rights -- through the state legislature since the end of January.
You can read more about the protests and the reasons for them in my previous diary about Moral Mondays at the NC General Assembly.
Or just watch comedy talk shows to see comedians lampooning the Tar Heel State for its legislature's tar-heel brained attempts to repeal the 20th and 21st centuries.