Raleigh-Apex NAACP to Hold Community Forum

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE,

March 19, 2014

For more information, contact: Rev. Dr. Portia W. Rochelle, Raleigh-Apex NAACP President,

919.662.5006

For media assistance, contact: Sarah Bufkin, NC NAACP Media Coordinator, 404.285.3413

Raleigh-Apex NAACP to Hold Community Forum on Sunday, March 23 to Educate about Traumatic Rollback of Voting Rights Both in North Carolina and Nationally

Sunday, March 23

4 pm

Martin St. Baptist Church - Johnson Building

1001 E. Martin St., Raleigh, NC 27601

RALEIGH - Extremists on the U.S. Supreme Court and in the N.C. Legislature are trying to roll-back our hard-won right to vote. We are faced with an all-out attack on the victories our parents and grandparents won with their blood. The U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act last year, and a month later, Gov. Pat McCrory signed a monstrous voter suppression act that had been rammed through our state legislature by Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate Leader Phil Berger. 

This Sunday, Professor Irv Joyner from the NC Central School of Law, who is the Legal Redress Chair for the NC NAACP, and other presenters will teach us how a five-man majority on the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act and how that tragic decision will impact this year's elections in North Carolina.

"Two years ago, Dr. Barber said we needed to vote like we never voted before," said Rev. Dr. Portia W. Rochelle, president of the Raleigh-Apex branch. "But I want to borrow from Rev. Barber and say this year we need to educate ourselves and others about the race-based threat to our communities and our rights by this group in power. And we need to work, to inform everyone we know and to vote in the May 6th primary like we never voted before."

The Forward Together Moral Movement will greet the coming of spring with practical information about the tricks of our opponents and how we will counteract them with the truth, hard work and a steady march toward justice and the ballot boxes on May 6th and beyond.

WHAT:          Forum for Meeting the Extremists' Attacks on our Voting Rights

WHEN:         Sunday, March 23 at 4 pm

WHERE:       Martin St. Baptist Church - Johnson Building (use the State St. entrance)

                       1001 E. Martin St, Raleigh, NC 27601

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