By Lesly Luna
On Feb. 13, thousands of activists gathered at the 10th Annual Moral March in downtown Raleigh.
Salem students that volunteer for grassroots organization Democracy North Carolina attended the event to personally raise awareness about the role of money in politics and voter participation.
Sophomore Rokia Tounkara made the trip to Raleigh to attend her first march because she wanted to get involved with important community efforts as she believes “movements like these are contagious in the most positive matter; the more people start caring and get involved, the higher the possibility of making progressive change.”
The purpose of this non-partisan movement was to unite people in solidarity in order for them to express their concern for the moral state of legislation-making in North Carolina to our very own lawmakers.
Since 2006, this movement has been led by its original two leaders: the North Carolina NAACP and the Move Forward Together movement. Since then, over 150 coalition partners have also taken part in the annual march.
As a collective, over eighty thousand people attended the event and marched through downtown Raleigh to the front steps of the State Capitol building in order to hold local politicians accountable while shouting the common chant of “forward together, not one step back.”
This year, the diverse group of attendees consisted of participants voicing their opinion on a number of social justice issues including criminal justice, corporate funding in politics, health care expansion, the legalization of marijuana, and immigration reform. There was also a mutual theme of protecting voting rights, emphasizing voter registration and increasing voter participation.
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