Jimmy Cochran plans to be part of a movement in Raleigh designed for “waking people up.”
The chairman of the Lenoir County Democratic Party will soon head to the North Carolina capital, joining the “Moral Monday” protest activities. It’s a movement organized by the state NAACP, coalitions and unions against upcoming Republican legislation. Thousands of citizens have assembled at the legislative building to peacefully protest policies, laws and cuts scooting along the pipeline, resulting in hundreds of arrests so far.
In its sixth and most recent event Monday, approximately 100 people were arrested during the petition, according to an Advancement Project release.
“I support what they’re doing,” Cochran said. “I support what they’re doing because they’re making cutbacks in healthcare, education, unemployment (and) insurance, just to name a few.”
He added the state’s legislature is, “disproportionately targeting lower-income people.”
Advancement Project, a group out of Washington, D.C., that focuses on issues of democracy and race nationwide, has assisted the North Carolina NAACP in fighting against state policies.
The co-director, Penda Hair, said Advancement Project provides legal capacity, research, analysis and potential litigation for the laws and policies in question. Two of the organization’s lawyers are currently in North Carolina with the state’s NAACP.
“We are fully committed to the struggle,” Hair said. “We are assisting the NAACP as it struggles over struggles that are currently in the legislature that would severely cut back on voting rights and also undermine the middle class and working class people by cutting unemployment compensation, by refusing to take federal money for Medicaid, by taking away the earned income tax credit, while providing a big tax loophole for 23 wealthy families.
“We’re helping wherever we can.”
Protestors are urging legislators to “govern for the good of the whole,” according to the Advancement Project release.
“Over the past two weeks, we have travelled the breadth of this state and one thing is certain,” said William J. Barber II, President of the N.C. NAACP in the release, “the people are overwhelmed by the extremism of the N.C. General Assembly and governor. By the end, thousands of concerned North Carolinians … came to the tour stops because the state they love is under attack by Tea Party-backed regressive forces who are committed to expanding the prosperity of the few at the expense of many.”
Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican overseeing a GOP-led, veto-proof super-majority in the House and Senate, said in an Associated Press report over the weekend that he is not going to back down from Moral Monday participants.
“They are going to come in try to change the subject,” McCrory said. “And I’m not going to let them. I’m going to concentrate on the economy, education and government efficiency.”
N.C. Sen. Thom Goolsby, R-New Hanover, is more pointed in his opposition to Moral Mondays — calling the event “Moron Monday” in an opinion piece he penned for the Chatham Journal on Friday.
“The circus came to the State Capitol this week, complete with clowns, a carnival barker and a sideshow,” Goolsby wrote in the op-ed. “The ‘Reverend’ Barber was decked out like a prelate of the Church of Rome (no insult is meant to Catholics), complete with stole and cassock. All he was missing was a miter and the ensemble would have been complete.”
The Wilmington Republican later described the participants as “angry, aged former hippies.”
Hair said the Moral Monday protests have evolved profusely because the work North Carolinians have done over the years to level legislations.
“I think that the protest has gotten so large because the NAACP has built a coalition of progressive people in North Carolina over the past several years who have been working together to move the state in a different direction,” she said. “Now that this legislature has come in and they have started trying to turn back the clock, essentially, the … coalition has come together and started protesting.”
Moral Mondays began April 29 and have drawn thousands of demonstrators to combat healthcare and unemployment benefit cuts that could affect more than half a million North Carolinians, according to multiple reports. Monday’s rally featured state clergy, who were among those arrested. Reports claim more than 350 total arrests have been made so far.
Cochran, who’s been the county’s Democratic Party chairman more than a year, is expecting his role in the protest to spread the word locally.
“The purpose of the protest is to make people aware of what’s going on in Raleigh in the Republican-led legislature,” he said. “(The protestors) are trying to let everybody know exactly what’s going on in Raleigh.”
Hair wants the protest to end with legislators backing down and not enacting the proposals on the table.
“(The protestors) want to let the legislature know that this is not the kind of state that they want to have,” she said.
Managing Editor Bryan C. Hanks contributed to this report. Jessika Morgan can be reached at 252-559-1078 or Jessika.Morgan@Kinston.com. Follow her on Twitter @JessikaMorgan.
Moral Mondays
What: Peaceful demonstrations protesting current legislature policies and laws
Who: N.C. NAACP and other state unions and coalitions each Monday
Started: April 29
Where: Raleigh