Hundreds of North Carolina NAACP Members Come Together at Winter Conference to Recognize its 2013 Efforts and to Step Forward with Renewed Strength into 2014
January 25, 2014
Abundant Life Church of God in Christ & Life Center
4400 Old Poole Rd. Raleigh, NC
News Conference
9:10 a.m.
Conference Sessions
9:30 a.m. - 4:15 p.m.
Humanitarian of the Year Banquet
7:00 p.m.
RALEIGH - Hundreds of North Carolina NAACP members will meet in Raleigh on Saturday, January 25 at the organization's annual winter conference to push the organization's campaign against the state's immoral and unconstitutional legislative policies forward into 2014.
Youth and adult leaders will engage in a day of training and workshops centered on the critical issues of our time. They will be trained in voter mobilization and voting rights and how to continue to build and support this powerful movement growing in North Carolina.
"In 2014, North Carolina is on the front line in this nationwide struggle for equality, justice, and economic opportunity," Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II said. "And so this year, the winter conference theme is 'We Shall Not Be Moved: Holding on to Past Victories as the Fight for Equality and Justice Continues.' The NC NAACP will be ready to stand alongside the hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians who are ready to move forward together."
The conference will be held at Abundant Life Church of God in Christ & Life Center, located at 4400 Old Poole Rd. Raleigh, and the first events will kick off at 9:10 a.m. with a news conference.
Mrs. Lorraine C. Miller, the Interim President & CEO of the National NAACP, will address the conference during the Lunch Keynote Speech. Other speakers include Mr. Kevin Myles, Director of the NAACP Southeastern Region V, and Ms. Penda Hair, the nationally-acclaimed attorney and Advancement Project Co-Director. Ms. Hair and her team of lawyers help to represent the NC NAACP in the critical challenge to the state's unconstitutional voter-suppression law--a law that was pushed through the NC General Assembly in the first year after the U. S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
On Saturday evening, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II will present the NC NAACP 2014 Humanitarians of the Year award to the over 100 volunteer attorneys who have given countless hours of their expertise and their services to represent the Moral Monday arrestees.
"I am pleased to announce the winners of our most prestigious award will be the scores of volunteer attorneys who are valiantly representing more than 940 of us in our struggle to vindicate our constitutional rights to peaceably petition the government for redress of our grievances," Dr. Barber said. "In making this fight, they breathe fresh oxygen into these fundamental rights for all of us."
Their steadfast work has opened a dialogue in North Carolina's courts and over its kitchen tables over what it means to participate in a democratic government. Just this week, a prosecutor dropped all charges against the arrestees in more than 50 cases.
At Saturday's banquet, the attorneys join the ranks of other renowned recipients, including Dr. John Hope Franklin, National Poet Laureate Dr. Maya Angelou, Governor Jim Hunt, and others who have championed the cause of human rights in North Carolina. Now in its 30th year, the annual Humanitarian of the Year banquet will begin at 7:00 p.m. at the Abundant Life Church of God in Christ and Life Center. Doors open at 6:00 p.m.
Dr. Barber will present the award, on behalf of tens of thousands of members of the NC NAACP, the hundreds of thousands of members of the 160 partner-organizations who are part of the Forward Together Moral Movement and Historic Thousands on Jones Street People's Assembly Coalition, and the over 940 people who were arrested for exercising their constitutional rights during the Moral Monday demonstrations last year.
