Pictured: NAACP Rally Flyer

RALEIGH – Congressman David Price announced Friday that he plans to join this week’s Moral Monday protest at the General Assembly in Raleigh.

The Moral Monday movement has drawn thousands of protesters to the state capitol in the past eight weeks, targeting policies of the Republican-controlled legislature. More than 400 protesters have been arrested in acts of civil disobedience, including many Orange County elected officials.

NAACP state chapter president and protest leader Reverend William Barber issued a call last week for larger crowds to attend these next two rallies, dubbing them “Mass Moral Mondays.”

“We would like the Governor and his party to know that we are outsiders, if by outsiders you mean outside of the Tea Party. If by outsiders, you mean outside of the intoxication of Art Pope’s influence, outside of extremism, and outside of hatred. We are outside of all those things because inside our hearts, we love justice,” Barber said.

Barber was responding to the assertion that North Carolina Republican Governor Pat McCrory made about the demographics of protesters, calling them “outsiders” and not natives of North Carolina.

The rally starts at 5 o’clock Monday at Halifax Mall behind the General Assembly and will focus on women’s rights, economic justice, and labor rights. Barber, and others, will also speak on behalf of the 70,000 state residents who will lose access to federal unemployment benefits when new state laws go into effect July 1.