“The civil rights movement moved from the bottom up, not from the top down — and that’s the same spirit that is behind Moral
Moral Mondays panel at the DHRC@FHI
Monday.” Prof. William Chafe, arrested on the second Moral Monday protest at North Carolina’s state legislature, spoke at a Duke Human Rights Center @ the FHI event today, updating Duke students and faculty who were away over the summer.
Duke sophomore Eliza Meredith
Joined by sophomore Eliza Meredith, Prof. Susan Thorne (like Chafe, a historian who was arrested in Raleigh) and Rev. Curtis Gatewood, a Moral Mondays leader and official in the state NAACP, Chafe called the protests an effort to stand up for justice against a reactionary political movement that is seeking to dismantle decades-worth of legislation protecting justice and equality. For Meredith, her studies in history and social justice deeply connected her to the marches.
When she attended, she wore a shirt honoring Joan Preiss, an activist from the 1960s who fought for farmworker rights. “Everything that we have people have put their bodies on the line so we can enjoy these privileges, and we need to put our bodies on the line for the next generation.”
A North Carolina native, Thorne was a member of the first integrated class at Wake Forest High School, but left the state to pursue her studies in history. “The north was not entirely the land of brotherhood,” she recounted. She says she’s not a risk-taker, but felt compelled to take part — and be arrested — because of actions like the repeal of the Racial Justice Act, designed to remove racial bias from the capital justice system.
Thorne also said that her decision was taken in part because, unlike so many others, she has a secure job and no fears about her financial stability. “I felt very confident in Duke’s ability to back us up, and we were over 100 people, most women who were conscious of their privilege.”
Rev. Gatewood called Moral Monday’s 13 weeks “the most uplifting experience I have ever had — love for our neighbor, sharing, caring, with the scriptures played out in the most brilliant and moral way in my 53 years of life.” Gatewood compared his experience to how Malcolm X described his journey to Mecca, with people from all walks of life, races and ages working together in harmony and for social justice. “I’m thankful that I’m sitting on a panel today with people who have chosen to be on the right side of history.”
One of the main goals of the protests in the future is to continue to educate people about the real impact of the legislature’s actions, , he explained. “Moral Mondays really pointed out people’s ability to receive the basics of life and how the legislature was voting to block that.”
Currently, organizers are holding rallies in each of the state’s 13 congressional districts. The legislative session won’t start again until 2014, but there will be other rallies in the meantime as well as lawsuits challenging new restrictions on voting.