ROBERT WILLETT - rwillett@newsobserver.com
NAACP President Rev. William Barber is escorted from the board room in handcuffs by Raleigh Police after he was arrested for staging a sit-in with three other activists during a recess by the Wake school board during their meeting on Tuesday, June 15, 2010 at the Wake County School's headquarters on Wake Forest Road in Raleigh
RALEIGH -- Police arrested four civil rights protesters, including state NAACP head Rev. William Barber and author Tim Tyson, after they refused to leave tonight's Wake County school board meeting. The arrests started about an hour-and-a-half after the biracial group disrupted the meeting, speaking and singing to empty seats when the board recessed, then taking over the elective body's own seats.
In addition to Barber and Tyson, author of the personal civil rights history "Blood Done Sign My Name," police arrested civil rights activist Mary Williams, a gospel singer and Wake schools parent who teaches a course with Tyson, and Pullen Memorial Baptist Church minister Nancy Petty. They were taken in handcuffs to the Wake County jail where all four were charged with second degree trespassing and released on a promise to appear in court at various dates next month.
Barber, Tyson, Williams and Petty spoke at length as Margiotta and board attorney Ann Majestic conferred about possible reactions.
"We are here for a nonviolent act of conscience," Barber said, proclaiming that he was ready to be jailed if necessary to oppose actions of the board in changing longstanding system policies that reinforce school diversity.
"Like a tree planted by the water, we shall not be moved," Barber said in the words of a familiar song of the 1960s civil rights movements Margiotta first recessed the board when the leaders were scheduled to speak. At about 5 p.m. the board returned to listen to them, but Margiotta recessed them again after nearly 30 minutes of speeches and singing.
Tyson criticized Tedesco as profoundly misguided for comparing the changes in Wake County schools to the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision.
The protest began when Margiotta called a recess of the board and Barber, state leader of the NAACP, objected.
"We'd like to finish the public comment period at this time," Barber said. "We've not had an opportunity to speak."
Margiotta offered Barber and the others a chance to speak after the recess.
"We're going to do it now," Barber said. "We are engaging in nonviolent resistance. We will not release the podium."
Board members have now come back into session and the leaders are being given a chance to speak. Petty is pastor of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, a Raleigh church with a long history of activism.
"Who does benefit from your recent decisions?" Petty asked. "Our entire community? Or selected communities where the wealthiest live?"
As Barber, Tyson and other continued their protest, the NAACP's North Carolina chapter issued a statement criticizing the school board's ruling majority decision to "destroy the socio-economic diversity policy" of North Carolina's largest school district. Signed by Barber, Tyson, Petty and others, the statement said protesters were prepared to be arrested to defend the legacy of school desegregation efforts of the past and prevent schools from being resegregated.
"Today we register our legitimate discontent," the statement said. "And like hundreds who have gone before us here in Wake County, we are
willing to break a lesser law and accept our punishment, in order to protect the larger law embodied in the federal and state constitutions and to defend the children of our community. If it is necessary that we be locked up to resist policies that will lock down our children in resegregated, high-poverty, and unconstitutional schools, so be it."
