The New Hanover County NAACP and HKonJ Coalition partners will hold a news conference on Friday, February 1 at St. Stephen AME Church, 501 Red Cross Street to announce the 7th Annual Historic Thousands on Jones Street People’s Assembly (HKonJ), where thousands will march on the NC General Assembly on Saturday, February 9, 2013. The news conference falls on the 53rd Anniversary of the Greensboro Sit-Ins where four students refused to leave a segregated lunch counter at a Woolworth’s on February 1, 1960.
WHEN: Friday, February 1, 2013, 5:00 PM – Anniversary of the Greensboro Sit-Ins
WHAT: News Conference Announcing HKonJ7 Mass Mobilization and Thousands
Marching on the NC General Assembly on Saturday, February 9, 2013
WHO: Deborah Dicks Maxwell, New Hanover County NAACP President, HKonJ Coalition Partners, surrounding area NAACP branch presidents and supporters.
WHERE: St. Stephen AME, 501 Red Cross Street, Wilmington, North Carolina
“We have to challenge what seems to be an Old South mentality in the NC General Assembly,” said Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, President of the NC NAACP and HKonJ Convener. “Fifty-three years ago on Friday, a group of young people from NC A&T University, organized on the campus of Bennett College, took the heroic step to challenge the Old South mentality. Fifty-three years later, with the blood of martyrs and a generation of heroes behind us, it is shameful we have to defend the same voting rights and economic justice they fought and even died for. We honor them and the Student Movement that grew out of their actions by continuing to build the Movement at the HKonJ People’s Assembly.”
“We need every person in our community who is committed toward ending poverty, preserving and expanding voting rights, providing quality healthcare for all, ending inequalities in the criminal justice system and ensuring education equality to travel to Raleigh for the People’s Assembly on Saturday, February 9, 2013,” said #### President of the Branch of the NAACP. “We need to say to the North Carolina General Assembly and all of our elected officials: ‘We refuse to go backwards.’ What concerns us about this Legislature is that they want to block access to public education, quality healthcare and fair wages, while they open up access to our resources to the corporations and the wealthiest one percent.”
“We is the most important word in the social justice vocabulary,” said Rev. Barber. “We win when we stand up for justice and equality. We win when WE stand up for the more than 1.7 million North Carolinians who live in poverty.”
This year, the NC NAACP and the HKonJ People’s Coalition are focusing on five areas that the Governor and all legislators must commit themselves to if they are to fulfill their Constitutional mandate to rule for the good of the whole:
1) Economic sustainability and ending poverty by fighting for full employment, living wages, the alleviation of disparate unemployment, a green economy, labor rights, affordable housing, targeted empowerment zones, strong safety net services for the poor, fair policies for immigrants, infrastructure development and fair tax reform;
2) Educational equality by ensuring every child receives a high quality, well-funded, constitutional, diverse public education and access to Community Colleges and Universities;
3) Healthcare for all by ensuring access to Affordable Care Act, Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security and providing environmental protection;
4) Fairness in the criminal justice system by addressing the continuing inequalities in the system and providing equal protection under the law for black, brown and poor white people;
5) Voting rights by defending the right to vote against suppression tactics, including voter ID, restriction of Early Voting or any other effort; expanding voting rights for all people."
Anyone interested in more information, contact New Hanover County NAACP or visit www.hkonj.com. You may also contact Rev. Curtis Gatewood, HKonJ Coalition Coordinator at the State NAACP Office at 866-NC-NAACP (626-2227) or curtis.gatewood@naacpnc.org for more information.
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