FORUM
The Genera! Assembly protects symbols
of a pro-slavery, white supremacist,
segregationist past more than people
William J.
Barber
Guest
Columnist
Last night
[July 23],
Gov. Pat
McCrory
signed the
"Historic
Artifact
Management
.a n d
Patriotism
Act," which prevents local officials from
removing Confederate monuments and
gives that authority to the North Carolina
General Assembly and Governor.
This morning [July 24], the N.C.
NAACP and Forward Together Moral
Movement challenged Governor McCrory
and the General Assembly's decision to
prioritize the protection of Confederate
monuments over the protection of North
Carolinians. [There also was talk about a
possible boycott of North Carolina.]
N.C. NAACP President Rev. Dr.
William J. Barber II's statement is
below:
Let us not forget what these symbols
are really about because symbols have
tremendous power. We sometimes forget
that in North Carolina's history, in the late
1890s, when they spread propaganda
about what would be the Wilmington
Riots, many whites could not read, so they
used symbols. One of those symbols
would be a black man or politician looking
like a vampire holding two white women
in his claws and someone coming along
with a Confederate flag and rescuing the
white women. The symbols were more
than just cartoons.
And after the promise of
Reconstruction, one writer has said, whites
could not re-enslave blacks. But what they
could do was raise a likeness of the pecu
liar institution's symbols to remind them of
their (former slaves' and their descen
dants') 'proper place' in the South. These
memorials reinforced racial inequality in
the past. That's why in a lot of places,
when you travel around the state, the
memorials are right in front of the court
houses. They were there to remind black
people, as they went into those court
rooms, that Jim Crow is still king; that you
are in a state that still does not want you;
that you better stay in your place. They
were meant to elicit fear.
Today, the General Assembly is more
committed to protecting monuments -
some of which have the Confederate flag
engraved on them - symbols of a pro-slav
ery, white supremacist, segregationist past
than they are to protecting people who are
living right now.
The governor is so weak that he would
rather placate those with this divisive and
extremist agenda than stand up and
demand that North Carolina politics come
into the 21st century. Governor, the truth
is, if you do not believe you can stop the
selling of license plates with Confederate
flags, why not put one on the back of the
Governor's car?
To the Governor and the legislature:
Why protect monuments when you haven't
protected the 500,000 people who need
Medicaid expansion and the thousands of
people who are dying? Why protect
Confederate monuments when you haven't
ensured proper raises for teachers and
funding for public education and teacher
assistance? Why are you protecting monu
ments - and Confederate monuments, at
that ? when you have not protected the
900,000 people whose Earned Income Tax
Credit you took? Why are you protecting
monuments - particularly Confederate
monuments - when you have not raised
wages to a living wage for the working
poor throughout North Carolina? Why are
you protecting monuments - particularly
Confederate monuments - when you have
not repealed the repeal of the Racial
Justice Act, when we live in a state that has
had more black men found innocent who
would have been killed on death row, than
any other Southern state?
And yet, instead of dealing with that
injustice in our criminal justice system,
just yesterday we received a rush to restart
the death penalty - when just last month,
with the Research Triangle Park. Now,
alter the June 25, 2013 Shelby ruling.
North Carolina passed the first and the
worst voter suppression bill. Our state is
more committed to protecting symbols of
a racist past than it is to protecting voting
rights in the present. Now, we are the first
after Charleston to say, "We want to pro
tect Confederate monuments, even with
Confederate flags on them." And they're so
committed to this that the party that is
always arguing about local control is now
taking power from local authorities.
Here is one more question: Where are
the monuments to the real heroes and the
real sheroes of our past? Where are the
monuments to the slaves who endured the
ugly horrors of slavery? Where is the mon
ument to the black and white fusion politi
cians, who after slavery rewrote our
First W Flight
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Above and at right are some
"symbols of racism and division."
Data Tuesday, July 21, 201S
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To: Intaftnaaconc org
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Governor, you pardoned a man who would
have been killed and who your party used
in political literature to get elected. You
know the system is broken, but you're
more interested in protecting monuments
than you are in protecting justice.
You're more interested in protecting
monuments to the Confederacy than you
are in signing the racial profiling bill that
has been sitting in the legislature - a bill
that would begin to deal with the reality of
the disparities in the criminal justice sys
tem and in policing that impact black and
brown people.
And less than a month after
Charleston, the Governor and the General
Assembly in North Carolina are more
interested in protecting the symbols of an
infamous, racist past than in addressing the
issues of our present. Once again. North
Carolina is first.
We used to be first in flight. We used to
be first in the best university system in the
South. We used to be first in technology
Constitution and stood against the Klan,
and fought to break the grip of systemic
racism? Where are the monuments to Ella
Baker? Where are the monuments to those
who desegregated the lunch counters and
the students from Bennett and Winston
Salem State? Where are the monuments to
the Freedom Riders, who first came
through North Carolina before they went
anywhere else in the South? Where are the
monuments to those who risked their life
and limb? Where are the monuments to the
lawyers who had their cars blown up while
trying to make this state more perfect?
It is so backwards, so wrong, so pitiful
that this is the focus of a legislature and a
governor in the 21st century and every
North Carolinian ought to be ashamed!
So, what are we going to do?
?We call on the governor to talk to the
best lawyers and see if there is any way his
can undo his signature on this bill. We still
believe in repentance. You do not want to
go down in history as the governor who
signed the first bill after Charleston to pro
tect the symbols of racism and division.
?Second, Governor, ask your lawyers
if you have the authority to remove the
Confederate flag from state license plates.
If you cannot, write a bill to have it
removed!
?Third, we call on all of the legislators
who were against this bill that just passed
yesterday to write a Truth Bill, demanding
that if these monuments are going to stay
up, we now ?have to write some Truth
plaques that are placed on these monu
ments that tell exactly when, and why, and
in what context they were erected.
It's important that we recognize that
we, in North Carolina, have a political
problem. Don't spend your time painting
on these monuments. Spend that time reg
istering people to vote. Register everybody
you know to vote, because everybody who
is doing this has been elected! I won't tell
you who to vote for, but we sure will tell
on them and tell you what they voted for
so you can make a conscious decision.
We have already been getting calls
from our branches asking us to take up, at
our convention in October, the possible
call of a boycott of North Carolina. That is
a decision for members to make - it's not a
lone decision. But some of members are
already saying, South Carolina was boy
cotted for 15 years. If our legislature and
our governor are going to be more interest
ed in protecting symbols of a racist past
than they are in protecting education,
healthcare, living wages, justice in the
criminal justice system, there are members
of the NAACP who want to have that con
versation and we're going to have it at our
state convention in October.
The Governor and General Assembly
need to know - if they do not already -
what kind of sentiment they start unleash
ing when they pass these bills. It gives sig
nals to certain people. Long before Dylann
Roof killed anybody. South Carolina legis
lators were talking about secession in
committee. The flag that flew over the
Capitol gave a certain license. That's why
Dr. King said, when he preached at the
furteral of the four girls who were blown
up in the Birmingham church, that every
politician who has fed their constituents
the stale bread of hatred and the spoiled
meat of racism is part of the reason why
these four girls are dead.
We received this message from some
one who claimed to live in North Carolina
on July 21, with the subject "flags, monu
ments, etc." (We have redacted the
sender's name and email address): See
message under photos above.
This, Governor and legislature, is what
you are unleashing. That flag does not rep
resent honor - it represents dishonor. It
represents - and always has represented -
the protection of white supremacy.
Which side are you on. Governor?
Which side are you on, legislature? If your
continuous stirring of the stench of the past
causes this kind of racist sentiment, you
will be held accountable.
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber is president
of the N.C. NAACP, which is based in
Durham.
How eliminating same-day registration has
disenfranchised North Carolinians
Mike
Meno
Guest
Columnist
Isabel Najera was excited
to vote in her first election as
a U.S. citizen in 2014. The
North Carolina mother of
four did everything right to
cast a ballot that would
count. She registered in time,
went to the right polling
place and showed up to cast
a ballot durihg early voting.
But through no fault ot her own, tsaoeis registration was
lost and her vote did not count.
Isabel is one of dozens of witnesses who has testified
in the trial over North Carolina's voter suppression law.
The ACLU, the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and
others are challenging provisions of the law that eliminat
ed same-day registration, out-of-precinct voting and a full
week of early voting. Hundreds of thousands of North
Carolinians used these voting options in previous elec
tions before they were repealed by the General Assembly
in 2013 by what many observers called the worst voter
suppression law in the nation.
Isabel was born in Mexico and came to the United
States 21 years ago as a legal permanent resident. She
worked as a migrant farm worker before getting a job with
her local Head Start, teaching 2- and 3-year-olds life and
socialization skills. Isabel earned her GED, an associate's
degree in early childhood education, and on July 30,2014,
she became a U.S. citizen. Later that year, Isabel went to
her local DMV to obtain a commercial driver's license so
she could tr^isport Head Start students on fifcld trips and
visits to doctor's offices. While there, she was asked if she
would like to register to vote. She said yes. It was the first
week of October, and she was told she had registered in
time to vote in the upcoming election.
On October 29, during North Carolina's early voting
period, Isabel went to cast her ballot at her assigned
polling location, but after two hours of searching, elec
tions officials couldn't find her registration. Her vote was
not counted ? even though she did everything right. In
previous elections, Isabel could have used same-day reg
istration to re-register and cast a ballot during early vot
ing?ensuring that her vote would count.
For thousands of North Carolinians, same-day regis
tration has served in past elections as a failsafe against
unforeseen problems, guaranteeing they could still cast a
ballot even if they had to update information or their reg
istration was lost through an error.
The court has heard from many other votes whose bal
lots could have been saved by same-day registration.
Dale Hicks, a former Marine sergeant who served in
Afghanistan, testified that his vote didn't count in the
2014 election because he didn't update his voter registra
tion when he moved from one county to another and was
therefore unable to vote in either. If North Carolina still
had same-day registration, he could have re-registered at
his new address and cast a ballot that counted.
Jessica Jackson, a Gaston County resident who has
successfully voted at the same polling location ever since
she was 18, explained the frustration of learning that her
voter registration had vfiished without a
trace because it was merged with another voter with
the same name. She spent hours speaking to election offi
cials who could not find her registration and told her to
cast a provisional ballot, but her vote was ultimately not
counted. Same-day registration would have fixed the
problem.
Sandra Beatty, a Greenville resident who is legally
blind, has two prosthetic legs, and can't travel or read on
her own, explained in a videotaped deposition how being
able to register and vote in one visit with same-day regis
tration makes it easier for disabled people like herself to
participate in elections. In 2014, she had a friend drive her
to vote in her first North Carolina election, but because
she didn't register in time, her vote didn't count.
In 2014, the first election under North Carolina's voter
suppression law, more than 11,000 registration forms
were submitted during early voting. In years past, the peo
ple who submitted those forms could have registered and
voted on the same day.
But under North Carolina's new restrictions, their
votes no longer count.
Supporters of the law often talk about protecting the
integrity of our elections. But there is little integrity in a
system that allows the votes of eligible, registered voters
to go uncounted.
Mike Meno is the Communications Director for the
ACLU of North Carolina. His commentary is found at
http://wwwjicpolicywatch .com.
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