Carolina Public Press: WNC voices build at Moral Monday protests

Moral Monday1 from Charlie Thomas on Vimeo.

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From Carolina Public Press:

The protests, which started in late April and are scheduled to return this afternoon, have been growing as groups from outside the Triangle organize carpools and buses bringing people here from across the state — including Western North Carolina.

On the day McGregor was arrested, Moral Monday attendance was the highest ever. Some counts puts an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people in attendance that day, the eighth protest in a series. One scan of the crowd and it was evident that part of what contributed to the turnout was a surge of visitors from the state’s westernmost counties.

Previously, several WNC residents had formed a handful of carpools and made the five-hour-plus trek from the region to Raleigh. But that day, two buses carried more than 100 people from Asheville. Carpools and caravans also headed down the mountain from Henderson, Jackson, Swain and Watagua counties. More mountain-area protesters are scheduled to join in today.

They held signs declaring “Hands Off Our Water” and “what happened to Asheville might not stay in Asheville,” joining those condemning the legislature’s moves in education, health care and environmental deregulation.

The protests have grown, in part, because the concerns have, too. What started as a NAACP-led reaction to the legislature’s actions on voting rights and policies effecting the state’s least fortunate has become a way for a growing coalition of groups to voice outrage.

Some said the only place to do that was in Raleigh.