Moral Monday returns to Asheville! 1 Year later!

[G_j]

1. Good write up in the ACT

http://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2014/07/28/asheville-host-nd-mountain-moral-monday-aug/13298649/

Asheville to host 2nd Mountain Moral Monday on Aug. 4
Casey Blake, [e-mail] 7:48 p.m. EDT July 28, 2014

ASHEVILLE – A year ago this week, organizers with the fledgling Mountain People's Assembly were scrambling to pull together flyers and T-shirts for a rally they thought might attract 1,000 people.

They optimistically estimated 2,000 in news releases and interviews, assuming that a few busloads of folks from surrounding counties would fill out the crowd.

But that Monday, an estimated 10,000 people filed in to Roger McGuire Green in Pack Square Park to hear to their message and see the charismatic leader who has since become a household name across the state: North Carolina NAACP president the Rev. William Barber.

The Mountain Moral Monday event will return Aug. 4, likely drawing thousands to downtown Asheville.


But a year after the first rally, which occurred at the height of the statewide movement that brought national attention to North Carolina lawmakers, little has changed in the General Assembly they've been petitioning.

In fact, organizers say, the policies they've been fighting "have only gotten worse."

"In some ways, everything has changed — everything is different," said Elaine Lite, one of the original organizers of the People's Assembly. "But in some ways, nothing has. Legislatively, things have probably become worse, and I think many lawmakers are even more averse to hearing the growing voices opposed to their decisions."

But the impact of the movement may lie more at home, they say — a contention that may only be decided come November.

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