NC NAACP and Its Partners Announce Campaign

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

6 March 2013

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

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

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

On the 48^th Anniversary of Selma's Bloody Sunday the NC NAACP and Its Partners Announce Campaign to Stop Far-Right's Efforts to Suppress Voting Rights Won by the Personal and Moral Courage of the Southern Freedom Movement.

RALEIGH - On Thursday, March 7^th, 2013--the 48th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday-the NC NAACP with leaders of other national and state human rights organizations, fresh from rallying at the US Supreme Court to defend Section Five of the Voting Rights Act, will challenge efforts to restrict the right to vote in North Carolina. Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, President of the NC NAACP and Chair of the Political Action and Legislative Committee of the National NAACP Board of Directors will be joined by Atty. Penda Hair, co-director of the Advancement Project as well as leadership from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), Democracy NC and others at the announcement.

The announcement will be made at 10 a.m. at the Center for Community Leadership at 711 Hillsborough Street, Raleigh, NC.

            At the news conference, leaders will outline the four-pronged attack on voting rights: 1) A new Poll Tax disguised as Voter ID; 2) Restrictions on Early Voting, Same Day Registration and Sunday Voting; 3) Race-Based Gerrymandering; and 4) Regressive and hypocritical attacks on the Voting Rights Act. Advocates will not only challenge the far right's vision, but also present a pro-justice, pro-democracy vision for how to expand access to the ballot and thereby expanding democracy. They will discuss the activities in honor of Bloody Sunday taking place in the month of March, which is being called "Voting Rights Month."

            "We find ourselves at another Edmund Pettus Bridge today in North Carolina," said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, President of the NC NAACP and Chair of the Political Action and Legislative Committee of the National NAACP Board of Directors. "This time, on our long march to a more democratic, more diverse, more humane society, those of us who have picked up the baton from Viola Liuzzo, Jimmie Lee Jackson, Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, Mickey Schwerner, and hundreds of others who died to win the vote and the Voting Rights Act, are being attacked again by weapons of deception, suppression and intimidation. This is what hypocrisy looks like. The multi-racial, re-emerging Southern Freedom Movement in North Carolina is what democracy looks like."

The NC NAACP and partners have named March as "Voting Rights Month" in honor of Bloody Sunday to honor Jimmie Lee Jackson, Viola Liuzzo, John Lewis, and others who sacrificed themselves in Selma in 1965 to win the crown jewel of the 1960's civil rights Movement-the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Churches across the state will hold Bloody Sunday activities during their March services. Informative Church bulletins will recite the history of the hundreds of civil rights martyrs who died after WWII to win the right to vote, 48 years ago. Testimonies from church elders about the sacrifices that they and their parents made to win the right to vote will be featured. Silent marches to the local courthouses and boards of education where African-Americans were once denied the right to register to vote will be conducted, reminding legislators of the sacred nature of the right to vote. Local media will be asked to investigate the costs of the new voter requirements.

            "We call the far-right's voter suppression bill a New Poll Tax," Barber said. "The only fraud committed in the last few elections has been by the Pope/Koch propaganda machine, that invented a non-existent problem called voter fraud, and came up with a catchy name-"photo ID"-for their New Poll Tax. Instead of charging a $2 poll tax to vote-outlawed by the 24^th Amendment -- they designed a maze of frustrating visits to government agencies with costly administrative fees that citizens who have no car and no driver's license must navigate and pay to exercise their constitutional right to vote!"

            Atty. Penda Hair, co-director of the Advancement Project, which through its legal support of grass roots movements in Pennsylvania and Texas, helped to stop the far-right's voter suppression efforts there, will join Rev. Barber and other North Carolina leaders for this historic event. Attorneys and advocates from the Southern Coalition for Social Justice (SCSJ), Democracy NC and other partner organizations will participate as well.

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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.