Re: March – NC NAACP/HKonJ Voting Rights Month
Amos 5:24
But let justice roll down as waters,
and righteousness as a mighty stream.”
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To Our Beloved Family of Faith and Supporters:
The North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP
and Historic Thousands on Jones Street People’s
Assembly Coalition (HKonJ) invite our faith community
Bloody Sunday 1965
leaders and congregants to join us in honoring the 48th Anniversary of courage, blood,
sweat, tears, and enduring faith- in-action shown by participants of “Bloody Sunday.”
Brief History of Bloody Sunday
On Sunday, March 7, 1965, over 500 peaceful marchers, led by John Lewis of SNCC,
headed out of Selma for Montgomery. They were protesting the denial of their right to
vote and the brutal murder of Jimmie Lee Jackson by the police at an earlier voting-rights
rally. As they reached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were viciously attacked by
Alabama state troopers with clubs and tear gas (see picture above). “Bloody Sunday”
became a galvanizing event, broadcasted around the world, revealing the courage of nonviolent freedom fighters in the face of the segregationists’ hate and violence. This
eventually led to the signing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Our voting rights are still under attack today! The North Carolina NAACP requests that
all Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ) Coalition partners, churches and
communities of faith, supporters and friends join us in lifting up Bloody Sunday as a
reminder of our struggle to ensure that everyone’s right to vote is protected. Bloody
Sunday services and other activities are being planned throughout the month of March.
In addition to other proposed activities outlined in this document to occur during
the month of March, we begin by asking that you organize, mobilize, and recognize:
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Public Hearing on Voter ID, Tuesday, March 12. The hearing will occur at 4
pm in Room 643 at the Legislative Office Building, NC General Assembly 16 W.
Jones Street, Raleigh, NC.
Prior to the Public Hearing on Voter ID on 3/12, meet us at 2 p.m. at the
First Baptist Church located at 101 S. Wilmington St.
Recognize ‘Voting Rights Sunday’ – March 17 and March 24
HKonJ/People of Color Justice and Unity Legislative Day scheduled for
Tuesday, March 26, 2013, beginning at 9:00 a.m.
Join us and support, “Remembering Bloody Sunday” Activities
Action items for your consideration (please do some or all)
1. Insert the attached leaflet into your church bulletins and distribute within your
congregation and community.
2. Give a Witness – encourage members of your church or community share their
experiences about when they were refused the right to vote and how they have worked to
protect that right. They could do this as a part of your meeting or at worship service.
3. Show a video about Bloody Sunday - We will have a film to be released in mid-March
that can be used to educate our communities. Here are some other videos that you can use
Selma Alabama Bloody Sunday 1965: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cNnG8xfy20
Selma 1965 - Edmund Pettus Bridge: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s00-OoZAWno
4. Have youth members or others perform a skit or poems about voting rights.
5. Come to the HKonJ/People of Color Legislative Day on March 26th to talk to
legislators about protecting the right to vote.
6. Organize with your local NAACP branch a silent march from your church to a place in
your community where African-Americans were once not allowed to vote.
7. Join our ongoing movement to protect voting rights, workers’ rights, economic
equality, fair education, health care for all, and equal protection under the law:
a. Have your church and willing parishioners to become an active member of the
nation’s oldest civil rights organization, the NAACP. The NAACP’s success and
survival are largely due to its unwavering partnership with the church and faith
community.
b. Have your church become an active Historic Thousands on Jones Street (HKonJ)
Coalition Partner, as several of the statewide religious denominations make up our
nearly 150 HKonJ Partners. Logon to www.hkonj.com for more information.
c. Work toward supporting and helping to develop where necessary our “NAACP
Religious Affairs”, “NAACP Community Coordination”, and “NAACP Political
Action” committees to build HKonJ Local People’s Assemblies; maximize voter
registration; protect the precious vote; and hold local and state representatives
accountable toward carrying out God’s call for laws which exemplify justice and
are considerate of “those who are amongst the least of theses.”
d. Call us toll free at 866-NCNAACP; text “NAACP” to 46988 for ongoing Action
Alerts; visit our websites at www.naacpnc.org and www.hkonj.com
HKonJ/People of Color Legislative Day 2012 – Elders and Youth Standing to Protect Voting Rights
The New Edmund Pettus Bridges
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Four-Pronged Attack to Take Away Voting Rights (for information/education purposes)
‘Woe to those who make unjust laws.’
Isaiah 10:1-4
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Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue
oppressive decrees, 2 to deprive the poor of their rights and
withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making
widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. 3 What will you Edmund Pettus Bridge
do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar?
To whom will you run for help? Where will you leave your
riches?4 Nothing will remain but to cringe among the captives or fall among the slain
1) The New Poll Tax Disguised as Voter ID: The far-right that gained control of our
legislature through its race-based gerrymandering, now wants to require people without
driver's licenses (mainly poor, elderly, and disabled people without cars) to obtain a
photo ID. The 24th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits a state from
abridging a citizen’s right to vote by requiring “any poll tax or other tax” to be qualified
to vote. Experts estimate car-less people would need to spend between $50 to $150 for
transportation, time, waiting in line, and gathering related documentation such as a birth
certificate. If they want to plead they are too poor, then they have to find a ride to another
government office and swear or affirm they are poor. It is not rocket science. The farright represents the rich and prosperous—the top 5%. They want to stop the bottom 4047% from voting. . “Woe” to such “unjust laws.”
Requiring voters to show a photo ID at first may sound like a small burden—for those of
us who already have one. But thousands of registered voters in NC who have voted for
years don’t have a photo ID. And these loyal citizens are disproportionately people of
color, seniors, and women who changed their name.
Several years ago, Rep. Mickey Micheaux (D) of Durham and Rep. Paul Stam (R) of
Apex worked out and helped to pass a bipartisan voting bill which provided that voters
had to attest who they were by signing their name when they vote, with a felony charge
against them if they lied. This simple procedure works. North Carolina is looked as a
model for this simple method of insuring virtually no voter fraud.
 The racial discrimination is plain: African Americans are 22% of the registered
voters in NC; but they make up 32% of the registered voters without a current
photo ID.
 Seniors are 18% of active voters, but 26% of those without a NC photo ID.
 Women are 54% of active voters, but 66% of those without a NC photo ID.
2) Attempts to eliminate Early Voting, Same Day Registration
and Sunday Voting: Part of the regressive legislature's attack on African American
voters – who make up the largest progressive voting bloc in the state – are efforts to
eliminate Early Voting and Sunday Voting. Over half of the North Carolinians who
voted in 2012 used early voting – including 70% of the African Americans who voted. It
is more convenient for those who work, those with children, and those who need help
getting to the polls. It is cost effective and eliminated long lines that discourage voters on
Election Day. “Woe to such “unjust laws.”
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Eliminating Sunday voting, and the Black tradition of Souls to the Polls after Church, is a
direct attack on the progressive Black voters
 61,000 voters in 21 counties used Sunday voting in 2012; African American
voters used this opportunity twice as much as white voters. Sunday voting must
be protected. Ending it is a direct attack on the African American church
 Same-Day Registration (SDR): allows people to register and vote during Early
Voting. Nearly 100,000 new voters used SDR in 2012. Even more voters used it
to update their registration. SDR is secure and increases voter participation. We
should allow SDR on Election Day!
3) Race-Based Gerrymandering: With an extremist majority in place in 2010, they used
taxpayer’s money to hire map-maker Tom Hofeller to stack and pack a maximum number
of Black voters into Congressional and Legislative Districts, reversing the formation of
multi-racial fusion voter coalitions that were in the benefit of black and poor white
voters. “Woe” unto such “unjust laws.”
 51% of North Carolinians voted for progressive candidates for US Congress in
2012, but only won 4 of the 13 seats. They packed 50 percent of the entire Black
population of NC into just 11 of 50 state Senate districts. 52 percent of entire
Black population of NC is confined to just 27 of 120 state House districts.
4) Hypocritical and Regressive Attacks on the Voting Rights Act: While rightwing
attorneys in North Carolina argue in support of the Voting Rights Act, twisting it an
attempt to support their race-based gerrymandering schemes, their national counterparts
are in the US Supreme Court trying to strip away the crown jewel of the Civil Rights
Movement: The Voting Rights Act of 1965. Section 5 of the VRA forces Southern states
to get permission from the US Department of Justice to pass any voting legislation, and is
needed to protect our state from the three attacks on voting rights listed above.
What do we want?
We need more voting, not less
‘Where there is no vision…’
Proverbs 29:18
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Where is no vision, the people will perish; but he who keepth the law, happy is he.
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Make it EASIER to vote!
Making Election Day a State holiday!
More Sundays to vote!
Longer early voting!
Same day registration on Election Day!
Ensuring that voting is FREE!
Release the Help America Vote Act funds –
Federal Money the NC General Assembly
held up to stop smoother elections last year.
 Automatic registration when someone turns 18
Thousands pictured at HKonJ7 02/09/13 Rallying to End Poverty and Protect Voting Rights
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Attend our “NAACP/HKonJ People of Color Justice and Unity
Legislative Day”
Action item request for your consideration (please announce and attend where possible)
Luke 4:18
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The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to
the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.
NAACP/HKonJ People of Color Justice and Unity Legislative Day scheduled for
Tuesday, March 26, 2013, beginning at 9:00 a.m. SAVE THE DATE (more details
to come)!
This will be the 8th Annual People of Color Justice and Unity Legislative Day led by the
North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP under the leadership of Rev. Dr. William
J. Barber, II, NC NAACP President & HKonJ Convener.
Social justice and civil rights groups representing the Historic Thousands on Jones Street
People’s Assembly Coalition (HKonJ) and local NAACP units will converge on the
North Carolina General Assembly in Raleigh to talk with their representatives from both
the North Carolina House and Senate and remind them of the urgent need to support
legislation which serves “the whole” body of North Carolinians and not the rich and
powerful few.
Pictured above are leaders gathered in front of NC General Assembly during
HKonJ/People of Color Justice & Unity Legislative Day 2012 to stop Voter
Suppression efforts prior to the 2012 election.
The event will be held Tuesday, March 26, 2013 this year at 9 a.m.
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The current General Assembly is one of the most radical in the history of North Carolina
and is already making laws and policy that will be devastating to the masses, especially
those we sees as “the poor”, “the broken-hearted”, “the captives”, “the blind [not
seeing the political deceit]”, and “the bruised or oppressed of God’s people”.
 A Voter ID Law which will prevent over 500,000 individuals from voting, both
young and old.
 Threatening to cut Medicare and Medicaid which will hurt hundreds of thousands
elderly, disabled citizens, and poor children.
 Unemployment already has been cut so drastically that there is no way a person
can sustain their households with below poverty compensation imposed upon
them.
 Cut in Education budget by 6 billion dollars which will wipe out Head Start and
will remove approximately 45,000 teachers across the state.
If such policies and laws concern you, please join us to make it clear to your
representatives despite who possesses the political majority or the political advantage, we
people of faith believe, ‘nothing shall be impossible for us!’ Because “We’ve Come
This Far By Faith!”
“20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye
have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to
yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.
Matthew 17:20
If you have any questions, please call our Religious Education Advocacy Project (REAP)
Director, Rev. Kojo Nantambu, Public Policy Coordinator, Attorney Jamie Phillips, or
our HKonJ Coordinator, Reverend Curtis E. Gatewood at the NC NAACP State Office at
1-866-NC-NAACP or visit www.naacpnc.org.
In the Spirit of the His Blood, Love, Peace, and Justice,
Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II
Rev. Dr. Cardes Brown, Jr.
President & HKonJ Convener
Religious Affairs Committee Chair
Rev. Curtis E. Gatewood
Rev. Kojo Nantambu
HKonJ Coalition Coordinator
REAP Director
Happy Easter!
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