Feel the Heat

I wanted to make sure we got there early for the 12th Moral Monday. I wanted to be able to see the speakers on the stage, which for me meant being right up front because I'm a kid and only about 4.5ft tall. Getting there early meant we got to talk to quite a few people before the event started. I talked to ladies from the League of Women Voters and volunteers from the ACLU, among many others. I even got to watch some people from the NC Justice Center set up a pig made out of balloons.

Seeing Rev.William Barber speak was amazing beyond any words I could use to describe it. During his speech, one of the nice men who was helping organize the event gave me a sip of his drink. After the speech, I went to go sit in the shade for a bit because it was extremely hot. After awhile, I went back out in the crowd. They started to assemble the people who were going inside. There were more of them then there had been the week before. Then, something really terrible happened. I was so hot, I got a little dizzy. This meant it was time to go.

Social media is great because even though I was on the highway heading home, I could follow everything going on using Twitter and Facebook. Everybody who took the time to post updates, pictures, and video should really be commended for allowing people who couldn't be at Moral Monday in person to still be part of it.

Despite the thousands of people who came out to stand up for voting rights on Monday, on Tuesday, the Senate put through a bill that will make it much harder for people in our state to vote. This is more than just a "voter ID" law. This bill calls to eliminate per-registering high school students to vote, something I was looking forward to myself. The bill increases the number of observers that can be at the polls and makes it easier for them to challenge votes. The bill cuts a whole week off of early voting and eliminates same-day registration. These are just a few of the things this bill does. You should read it for yourself here: http://bit.ly/nc-anti-voter-bill

A lot of people at the 12th Moral Monday stood out in the heat to stand up for our rights. Where were our lawmakers? They were somewhere keeping cool, I'm sure. Well, I say it's time to make them feel the heat. Too many people have felt for too long that contacting their lawmakers doesn't do any good. The lawmakers just ignore them or vote the way they were going to vote anyway. They want us to feel unimportant. They want us to feel like we don't have a voice, but these lawmakers work for us. We need to make their phones ring off the hook. We need to fill their email boxes and mailboxes. We need to show up at their offices. We need to remind them we do have a voice and that we will hold them accountable during future elections. They might ignore a few of us, but when a few turns into hundreds and thousands of people contacting them each day, it might make them a little dizzy.