NC Lawmakers Call to Repeal These Extremist Policies Hurting Our State’s Most Vulnerable

Around a Dozen Moral Witnesses Sit In at Speaker Thom Tillis' Office to Petition Him for a Serious Commitment to Engage on These Issues of Life and Death Importance: RALEIGH, NC – Hundreds of North Carolinians joined together today at the General Assembly as grassroots volunteer lobbyists to visit each legislator and to call upon them to repent for choosing political ideology over real people, to repeal these laws that are hurting our most vulnerable and to restore our confidence in their ability to govern for the good of us all.

About a dozen clergy members and workers took our petition to Speaker Thom Tillis' office, refusing to leave until he would engage in a serious debate over substantial issues like the expansion of Medicaid, the restoration of the EITC, the repeal of the monster voter suppression law, increased support for public education and the return of critical unemployment benefits.

 "Today, North Carolinians all across our state have arrived in Raleigh to raise their voices," said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, president of the North Carolina NAACP. "We visited each lawmaker today to ask them to do the right thing – to repeal these bad laws. These issues are not Democrat or Republican. They are moral issues, deep issues, life-and-death issues that we are fighting for. It would be a shame for us not to be standing here. As the abolistionist William Lloyd Garrison once said, how can we be moderate in the face of such injustice? We stand in solidarity with those among us who felt they had to escalate our petition because our requests for a serious conversation have been met with attempts to silence the people, not support the people."

After listening to scholars and policy experts discuss all of the benefits that North Carolina would enjoy if this General Assembly reversed its extremist course and undertook a serious program of repeal, the NC NAACP and the Forward Together Moral Movement broke into grassroots volunteer lobbying groups and headed into canvass each legislator in their offices.

After visiting our legislators, the Forward Together Moral Movement reassembled and moved together down to Speaker Tillis' office where workers and clergy members entered to speak with his aides. His officers have now cleared the hallway outside of his office. It appears that arrests are imminent.

More than a hundred people stand in solidarity with them and are congregated on the second floor of the General Assembly.

Speaker Tillis then opened the NC House of Representatives from the floor with a prayer.

We will attempt to update this as action takes place.