This summer’s historic N.C. General Assembly session may have finally come to a close, but the NAACP rally held on Franklin Street last Wednesday is an encouraging reminder that civic action surrounding legislation should not end until policymakers acknowledge and consider their constituents’ demands.
The Moral Monday protests of this summer have not succeeded in changing policy just yet, but the media coverage generated by hundreds of arrests outside the N.C. Legislative Building raised awareness of policies being written every day by the Republican-dominated legislature.
Political views aside, the protesters should be praised for their interest in sustaining a rule of the people and attempting to bridge the disconnect between legislators and citizens.
Protesters shouldn’t need a General Assembly session or the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington to rally for what they believe in, and if protests stop now, they will have been in vain.
Last week’s rally included many UNC students who did not attend the summer protests. The thousands of students who just returned to Chapel Hill have the power to breathe life into a new wave of protests throughout the fall semester and indefinitely until the General Assembly finds the courtesy to answer to its citizens. The students who found themselves on Franklin Street last Wednesday should continue fighting for the right of North Carolinians to have their voices heard by policymakers.
Whatever your political ideology, it’s always appropriate to want your voice to be heard by those in power.
So, keep on keeping on, protesters, and show the rest of the country that the people of North Carolina have not forgotten what it means to be American.
