Local NAACP News – August 2016

by Carmen Ramos-Kennedy –

Asheville-Buncombe Branch NAACP and the Mountain People’s Assembly, in coalition with NAACP branches across WNC, will bring the third Mountain Moral Monday-Asheville (MMM3-Avl) to Pack Square on Monday, Oct 24.

The event will feature a wide variety of speakers and musical guests.

The Asheville-Buncombe Branch has joined with North Carolina We The People Campaign’s growing coalition of NC organizations to kick off its petition campaign for a statewide ballot measure to address the introduction and passage of a Constitutional amendment that will establish the principle that corporations are not people and that money is not speech.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit ruled in early August that North Carolina’s Republican-led legislature enacted new voting restrictions in 2013 so as to intentionally blunt the growing clout of African American voters. The unanimous decision by a three-judge panel is an overwhelming victory for the Justice Department, the NC NAACP and other civil rights groups. Election law experts consider North Carolina’s voter law one of the most extreme in the nation; it was coined “draconian” by the NC NAACP. The ruling—similar to rulings by other Circuit Courts affecting several other states—suggests a growing judicial suspicion of the wave of voting restriction legislation passed in recent years by Republican-led legislatures.

The Asheville-Buncombe Branch NAACP meets at 6:30 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month at Hill Street Baptist Church, 135 Hill Street, off Montford Avenue in Asheville. For information, contact President Carmen Ramos-Kennedy, [email protected].

Carmen Ramos-Kennedy is the President of the Asheville-Buncombe County NAACP Branch #5363. For questions and membership information, call (828) 255-4453, or send an email to [email protected]. Asheville Buncombe NAACP, PO Box 2881, Asheville, NC 28802.