NC NAACP AND HKonJ COALITION TO HOLD POOR PEOPLE'S MARCH FOR ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY ON FEBRUARY 9

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

8 February 2013

For More Information:        Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, President, 919-394-8137

                                            Mrs. Amina J. Turner, Executive Director, 919-682-4700

For Media Assistance:        Rob Stephens, Field Secretary, 336-577-9335

 

7^TH ANNUAL HKonJ PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY BRINGS THOUSANDS TO THE STREETS OF RALEIGH TO MARCH ON THE NC GENERAL ASSEMBLY

RALEIGH - Following last year's Truth and Hope Poverty Tour, the North Carolina NAACP and 145 partners in the Historic Thousands on Jones Street People's Assembly Coalition are mobilizing thousands of North Carolinians with a new urgency to gather in Raleigh and march on the NC General Assembly on Saturday, February 9, 2013. The People's Assembly will focus on systems and policies that hold down poor people. Presenters will outline the People's Legislative Agenda and a vision for how the state can move forward.

WHAT:           Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) People's Assembly

WHEN:           Saturday, February 9, 2013

WHERE:         9:30 AM: Gather at Shaw University 118 E South St. Raleigh, NC

                        10:30 AM - March to NC General Assembly

                        11:00 AM - People's Assembly at NCGA, 16 W Jones St. Raleigh, NC

Watch Video Promo Here

Go to www.hkonj.com for more information

            "We have to challenge what seems to be an Old South mentality of going backward rather than forward in the NC General Assembly," said State NAACP President, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II. "What concerns us about this Legislature is that their first order of business is not creating jobs, but is cutting unemployment benefits, refusing federal money for Medicare and Medicaid expansion and proposing voter suppression legislation.  This is just the second week of the legislative session and we are seeing the ultra conservative leadership in the NC General Assembly lead a cruel and unusual quadruple attack on labor rights, unemployment benefits, Medicaid and voting rights that will have a devastating impact on all poor and working people. Beyond these attacks, they are considering tax "reform" which would cut corporate and income tax, shifting the burden of the state budget more and more on the backs of the poor and working class through higher sales tax. This is regressive and not progressive. We call on leaders to nor be Democrats or Republicans, but statesmen and stateswomen who do what is best for the good of the whole, with justice and fairness for all people."

            Key advocates, experts and scholars from the areas of economic justice, health care, labor, progressive faith, civil and voting rights, immigrant rights, housing, LGBT rights, environmental justice and others will lay out demands and plans for moving the state forward. They will outline the impacts of extremist legislation being considered in the People's House, while presenting a vision of a better way for North Carolina. A pre-HKonJ service and Mass Meeting will take place at Rush Metropolitan AME Zion Church, 558 E Cabarrus St.  Raleigh, NC, on Friday, February 8, at 7:00 pm.

            "Too often in public and private discourse and policy we commit attention-violence against the poor," Rev. Barber continued. "But when we see faces of poverty and hear voices of poverty, we can come together to change the institutional realities that sustain the systems of poverty. Anything less renders suspect our claim that our values come from our faith and from our constitution."

            "We are called, at this very moment, to engage in a great struggle to try to assure that North Carolina remains a state committed to the dignity, prospects and opportunities of all her people," said Professor Gene Nicol, Director of the UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. "HKonJ is the most important single annual event in this historic battle -- determining whether we will, as our current governmental leaders seem to want, join the Old South in its exclusionary and marginalizing politics. The people of North Carolina are repulsed by this unfolding government by privilege. We'll show that on Saturday."   

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Founded in 1909, the NAACP is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. Its members throughout the United States and the world are the premier advocates for civil rights in their communities, conducting voter mobilization and monitoring equal opportunity in the public and private sectors.