Protests Aim at One Man Who Moved North Carolina to the Right [View all]

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http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/14/us/protests-aim-at-one-man-who-moved-state-to-right.html?pagewanted=all

By TRIP GABRIEL
December 13, 2013

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Inside a Roses discount store, glass ornaments were $3 a pack and a toy train meant to delight on Christmas was $10.

Outside, protesters were in a far less festive mood. They accused the owner of the discount chain, Art Pope, the state budget director, of bankrolling conservative candidates and supporting policies that hurt the store’s poor and minority shoppers.

“It may appear he’s contributing to the community because he has a business,” the Rev. Kojo Nantambu, the local N.A.A.C.P. president, said on Wednesday. “But those are only vehicles to be used to destroy the community.”

Liberal groups that thronged North Carolina’s Capitol over the summer to protest the General Assembly’s abrupt rightward swing are trying to keep the momentum going with holiday pickets at Mr. Pope’s stores across the state. More than a dozen are planned in coming days, including five this weekend.

Often called North Carolina’s equivalent of the billionaire Koch brothers, Mr. Pope has used a family fortune to endow conservative research groups and donate to tax-exempt organizations that unseated Republican moderates as well as Democrats. Gov. Pat McCrory, after becoming the first Republican to capture the executive mansion in 20 years, appointed him budget director last year.

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