Why Moral Mondays is important

Amos Brown, Indianapolis Recorder -  “Moral Mondays” is a movement born out of a struggle of people dealing with an inflexible, ultra-conservative, overwhelmingly Republican Legislature and Governor in North Carolina.

In the Tar Heel State, the organization combined activism, peaceful civil disobedience and intense grassroots communications and lobbying to start turning attitudes of people in that state away from a highly conservative agenda.

Now, with the support of over 50 Indiana grassroots organizations, including organized labor, Concerned Clergy, and Indiana’s State Conference of NAACP Branches, the Moral Mondays movement has come to Indiana.

... In town to help teach, organize and fire up Hoosiers for the Moral Mondays effort, the Recorder sat down in an Attucks High School classroom with the Rev. Dr. William Barber II, head of North Carolina’s NAACP, as he talked about his movement and what people in Indiana and other states face today from energized ultra conservatives.

How did Moral Mondays start? “We in the NAACP (in North Carolina) asked why are all the advocacy groups fighting separately on the issues?” Barber asked. “Why don’t we find a way to come together?”

Barber continued, “We all looked at which power group had the most influence for or against issues we were concerned about. We found it was the General Assembly and the Governor. Then we went down the voting list and found the same people that were voting against environmentalists, were voting against public education, voting against labor rights. And the question was if they were mean enough to be together, why weren’t we smart enough to be together?”

Barber answered, “Enough pain will make people protest. And your Governor Pence and this extremist legislature have created a lot of pain.”

... Barber equated what happened in North Carolina to a moral imperative and said people are starting to get the message, “All over the country people are starting to understand we need a movement that’s not about left or right, liberal versus conservative, but a deeper moral movement.”

... Rev. Barber was blunt and explicit in imploring the community not to ignore state and local elections, “We cannot simply say we elect a president. You know what the Tea Party folks have learned? We’ll give you the president. We’ll take over the states, we’ll control the voting rules, determine who goes into Congress. All the president will be able to do is pass executive orders.”