The Moral Monday movement continues its massive efforts to register voters across North Carolina, and throughout the south. Today, the focus is on Wilmington, North Carolina and if you can't be there you can watch the event on livestream, at 5:30 PM, EST.
NAACP leader Barber to speak at local Moral Monday march
WILMINGTON | North Carolina's NAACP leader will give the keynote speech at the Moral Monday march in Wilmington on Sept. 15, said Deborah Dicks Maxwell, president of the New Hanover County NAACP.
The Rev. William Barber III was last in Wilmington in November 2013, when he spoke out against perceived excessive use of force by police after several high-profile officer-involved shootings...
The rally will begin at 5:30 p.m. Monday at Wilmington's Riverfront Park. It will be the first such event in Wilmington.
Port City HKONJ event
on facebook
Join the New Hanover County NAACP and Forward Together partner organizations in Wilmington for a Moral March to the Polls Rally!
Monday, September 15
5:30 pm
Riverfront Park
5 N Water St.
Wilmington, NC 28401
The city of Wilmington North Carolina holds an important place in civil rights history.
Wilmington Insurrection of 1898.
The Wilmington Coup d'Etat of 1898, also known as the Wilmington Massacre of 1898 or the Wilmington Race Riot of 1898, occurred in Wilmington, North Carolina starting on November 10, 1898 and continued for several days. It is considered a turning point in post-Reconstruction North Carolina politics. The event is credited as ushering in an era of severe racial segregation and disfranchisement throughout the South. Laura Edwards wrote in Democracy Betrayed (2000), "What happened in Wilmington became an affirmation of white supremacy not just in that one city, but in the South and in the nation as a whole."
Originally described by whites as a race riot (suggesting blacks were at fault), the events are now classified as a coup d'etat, as white Democratic insurgents overthrew the legitimately elected local government. A mob of nearly 2000 men attacked the only black newspaper in the state, and persons and property in black neighborhoods, killing an estimated 15 to more than 60 victims
Listen to Rev. Barber speak of that history, and of the more recent struggle to get a pardon for the Wilmington 10.
A victory was won:
North Carolina governor pardons 'Wilmington 10'
(CNN) -- Forty years after they were convicted by a jury of firebombing a grocery store in Wilmington, North Carolina, civil rights activists who became known as the "Wilmington 10" were pardoned Monday by the state's outgoing governor. "These convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina's criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer," said Gov. Beverly Perdue. "Justice demands that this stain finally be removed."
In 1972, nine black men and one white woman were convicted in the store firebombing in the coastal city despite their claims of innocence and their supporters' vehement argument that the defendants were victims of racially biased prosecutors.Their sentences were reduced in 1978 by the state's governor then, Jim Hunt, and two years later their convictions were overturned in federal court for reasons of misconduct by the prosecutors.
But until Monday there were no pardons, and the sting of the guilty verdicts still followed the six surviving members of the group that was known nationwide as the Wilmington 10.
Perdue said that among the key evidence that led her to grant pardons of innocence were recently discovered notes from the prosecutor who picked the jury. The notes showed the prosecutor preferred white jurors who might be members of the Ku Klux Klan and one black juror was described as an "Uncle Tom type." Perdue also pointed to the federal court's ruling that the prosecutor knew his star witness lied on the witness stand. That witness and other witnesses recanted a few years after the trial.
You can read more about that history in Black Kos:
"40 years to Justice: the Wilmington 10", and at the
Triumphant Warriors website.
North Carolina remains a battleground for the fight for justice. The NC legislature, controlled by Republican extremists is out of control.
This summary is from Right-Wing Watch:
In the years since Citizens United, North Carolina has provided a clear example of what happens when a small number of corporate interests, allied with a far-right base, are allowed unbridled influence over elections. Since 2010, one North Carolina multimillionaire has marshaled the funds for a Republican takeover of the statehouse and governor’s mansion, leading to a slew of far-right legislation cutting benefits for working people, lowering teacher salaries, denying Medicaid coverage to half a million low-income people, defunding public education, eliminating protections against racial discrimination in the criminal justice system, gutting gun violence prevention efforts, attacking religious freedom and threatening women’s reproductive rights – all while cutting taxes for corporations and the wealthy.
This effort has gone hand in hand with a concerted attack on the very mechanisms of democracy in North Carolina. Since coming into power, Republicans in North Carolina have launched one of the country’s broadest attacks on voting rights, decimated the state’s campaign finance disclosure laws and contribution limits, heavily gerrymandered congressional districts, and politicized judicial elections.
People in Wilmington continue to protest
excessive use of force by the police.
Fifty-one years after Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech, cries of “No justice, no peace” rang out in the streets of downtown Wilmington. A group of about 50 protestors marched hand in hand down Red Cross Street Aug. 28, making its way to the 1898 Monument on North third Street.
The nonviolent march served to honor the anniversary of Dr. King’s speech and also bring awareness to victims of perceived excessive use of force by police. Many of the protestors held signs bearing the names Brandon Smith, Trevon Robinson, Ronald Roland and Grace Denk, the four victims killed by police in Wilmington since October 2013.
Support the struggle for justice in North Carolina. Join the fight to get out the vote for 2014 and beyond. Follow
GOTV 2014 here at Daily Kos.
Forward Together...Not One Step Back!