Moral Mondays and our future

by Jim Abbott, Asheville Citizen-Times, December 20, 2013.

There is a mistaken assumption on the part of many that the nonpartisan Moral Monday movement is really just a Democratic Party movement in disguise.

But this grassroots people’s movement actually had its origins way back in 2007, when it was Democrats, not Republicans, who controlled both houses of the General Assembly and the Governor’s Mansion.

That was the year when the NAACP and more than 150 other nonprofit organizations first came together around a progressive 14-point legislative agenda and formed a coalition named “HK on J” (which stands for “Historic Thousands on Jones Street,” the location of the Legislative Building).

Every February since then, in the context of a mass public demonstration, that 14-point agenda has been presented to the General Assembly as a petition for legislative action. And it is virtually the same agenda being championed this year at all the Moral Monday demonstrations: quality public education, adequate wages and economic security, health care for all, expanded voting rights, environmental justice, collective bargaining rights, immigration reform and basic civil rights for everyone.

Neither party, we maintain, has done enough to extend these fundamental human rights and opportunities to all the people of our great state, and we have consistently called on Democrats and Republicans alike to keep moving North Carolina forward to reach these goals.

Regarding the more than 900 people who have been arrested for engaging in acts of peaceful, nonviolent civil disobedience: The North Carolina Constitution states clearly that “The people have a right to assemble together to consult for their common good, to instruct their representatives, and to apply to the General Assembly for redress of grievances”; so those of us who have been arrested feel as though we acted well within our legal, as well as our moral, rights. But we willingly submitted ourselves to arrest to emphasize the depth of our concern over the dismantling of so much of what we hold dear about North Carolina and also to stand in solidarity with those most adversely affected by what we consider to be callous and regressive legislation.

There is, however, one critique of the Moral Monday movement that I believe those of us involved in it need to pay attention to — and that is that we not demonize those who disagree with us but rather keep our focus squarely on the issues and the goals we seek. That principle was central to the greatness and effectiveness of both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the prison-transformed Nelson Mandela, for they both saw their struggles as being not only against injustice but for the reconciliation of all people.

And it is my hope that those who disagree with us would adopt that same principle as well, so that, through respectful dialogue, we might be able to discover, just as Mandela and F. W. de Klerk did, surprising new ways to break down the barriers that separate us, extend justice and equal opportunity to all, and move forward as one united people into a bright new future.