Tagged: NAACP

If you've gone to the legislature these past four Mondays, you likely encountered a group of demonstrators singing, chanting, holding hands and raising signs. And a lot of them are getting arrested. Since April 29th, 153 people have been arrested at what the NAACP and other organizers are calling "Moral Mondays."

A group of community members and scholars joined host Frank Stasio on WUNC's The State of Things to talk about the recent arrests, as well as the theory and history behind civil disobedience on a global scale.

Police at the General Assembly in Raleigh arrested 17 protesters Monday evening who were protesting inside the building.

The group, which included state NAACP head Rev. William Barber, was speaking out against a series of Republican-led bills that have been passed recently. Barber says that includes a measure that would require residents to bring photo identification with them to the polls.

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 often overshadows what may be his most radical crusade. The Poor People’s Campaign in the spring of 1968 was organized by a coalition of predominately Black and Brown organizers working across the color line.

The head of the state's NAACP is asking Governor Perdue to pardon ten activists who were convicted of arson in the midst of racial tensions in Wilmington in 1972. The "Wilmington Ten," as they're known, were set free in 1980. That was after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions, saying the prosecutor and the trial judge had violated the defendants' constitutional rights. But the group has never received an official pardon from the state.