Moral Monday 10-Year Anniversary and Recommitment Rally

April 2023 marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Moral Monday movement.

The grassroots campaign was launched to protest the regressive policies of the Republican-led North Carolina General Assembly and then-Gov. Pat McCrory (R) on issues including voting, the economy, criminal justice, education, and human rights. The protests eventually spread to other communities across North Carolina as well as to other states, including Georgia, Illinois, New Mexico, and South Carolina.

One of the key leaders of that protest movement was the Rev. William Barber II, an Eastern North Carolina native and pastor of Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, NC. His work to build the interracial, inter-religious, intergenerational “fusion coalitions” necessary to confront systemic violence has shown us the importance of connecting history, policy, and grassroots organizing to fuel social change. The mass movement he helped build continues to shape our region’s people.

On April 24, Rev. Barber and other organizers held a Moral Monday 10-Year Anniversary and Recommitment Rally at the state capitol in Raleigh.

Ten years ago, 17 North Carolinians walked into the General Assembly to bear witness to the body’s immoral attacks on the most vulnerable residents of the state. Before long, thousands had joined in and helped forge a new moral vision for North Carolina. The Moral Monday movement went on to be one of the largest direct action campaigns at a state legislature in U.S. history, with over 1,000 people arrested while demanding North Carolina’s leaders stop committing murder by public policy.

The diverse, fusion movement brought together North Carolinians of all races, in all parts of the state. It helped pave the way for Medicaid expansion, drove down extremist Gov. Pat McCrory’s poll numbers and prevented attacks on voting rights, including preserving early voting and same-day registration and blocking voter ID requirements, among many other victories. Still, today extremist leaders in the state capitol are hard at work scapegoating poor people, LGBTQ people, immigrants, women and people of color in order to concentrate wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands.

Repairers of the Breach is building a movement rooted in a framework that uplifts our deepest moral and constitutional values to redeem the heart and soul of our country. Stay up-to-date by visiting www.breachrepairers.org.