NAACP – Ruby Sinreich

I have lived in North Carolina since I was two years old, and now I’m raising my son here. I have personally been from Murphy to Manteo (not all in one day!) and I truly love this state.

I attended the very first HKonJ (Historic Thousands on Jones Street) 11 years ago, and almost all of them since then! Thanks to the visionary leadership of the Reverend William Barber of the NC NAACP organizing HKonJ and then Moral Mondays we have been able to bring together a huge community of advocates around civil rights, the environment, workers, women’s rights, stopping unjust wars, and much more. It’s important for me to raise my voice along side theirs because I know we are all in this together.

We have to take our state back from those who only want power and money. We have to stand together at HKonJ, now known as the Moral March on Raleigh, to show our strength and build this community for the future.

Helping my son see at the 2014 Moral March:

Analysis from Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling on how Pat McCrory shoved through unpopular policies (including but very definitely not limited to HB2) and then wasn’t able to hide from the people thanks to the Moral Monday protest movement!

Pushing back hard on McCrory worked. The seeds of his final defeat today were very much planted in the summer of 2013. And it’s a lesson for progressives in dealing with Trump. Push back hard from day one. Be visible. Capture the public’s attention, no matter what you have to do to do it. Don’t count on the media to do it itself because the media will let you down. The protesters in North Carolina, by making news in their own right week after week after week, forced sustained coverage of what was going on in Raleigh. And even though it was certainly a long game, with plenty more frustration in between, those efforts led to change at the polls 42 months after they really started.