The North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign is wrapping up its statewide bus tour today in Raleigh. They plan on joining school teachers for the May 1 demonstration.
The bus tour moved from Asheville, to Statesville, and then Greensboro, bringing to light issues affecting the poorest of North Carolinians, like mass incarceration and voting rights.
Tuesday night’s stop was outside the Durham County Courthouse. Ana Ilarraza Blackburn is co-chair of the state’s Poor People’s Campaign. She said they learned a lot on the tour.
“We went to [North Carolina] A and T where we showed what voter suppression and gerrymanders do to suppress the people's vote and that's not what democracy looks like!" said Blackburn. "And we headed all the way down to Sanford where we dealt with immigration issues because guess what, no human being is illegal!”
Andrea Hudson is part of the organization All of Us or None. She told the crowd, something has to be done about the disproportionately high number of "black and brown people" who end up in jail.
"We want to talk about the over-policing of certain neighborhoods." said Hudson. "People don't wake up in the morning and say I want to commit a crime today. They wake up and say I want to take care of my family today."
The North Carolina leg of the tour is part of a 28 state National Emergency Poverty and Truth bus tour that started in Charleston. A "Poor People's Moral Action Congress," is scheduled to gather in Washington, DC in June.