ROBERT WILLETT -robert.willett@newsobserver.com
North Carolina NAACP president Rev. Dr. William Barber is flanked by most of the 19 activists who were arrested last week during the Wake County School Board meeting. Barber and the group held a press conference Tuesday at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh. Barber and the activists promised to continue their effort to prevent the school board from re-segregating the Wake County schools, by abandoned their busing for diversity policy.
RALEIGH -- Demonstrators arrested at a recent meeting of the Wake County school board, including the head of the state NAACP and the pastor of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church, have gathered again today to state their objections to the board's recent actions and to show their community connections.
In Pullen's sanctuary on Hillsborough Street, the Rev. William Barber, of the NAACP, and Pullen pastor the Rev. Nancy Petty stand with others arrested on July 23 at the school administration building on Wake Forest Road.
"What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice?" Barber began, quoting the Bible. "This is about the schools, but at a deeper level it is about our souls," he said later in the event.
Those arrested range from seven ministers to six people of high school and college age and include several NAACP officials.
Supporters of the board majority have said the demonstrators largely came from outside Wake County to obstruct a policy change endorsed by the voters who elected four new board members last fall. Those speaking today are seeking to place it in a different context.
"The resegregation of Wake County is a piece of a much larger national struggle," said Laurel Anne Ashton, UNC-Chapel Hill student from Asheville who has been working with the Raleigh group NC Heat, for Heroes Emerging Among Teens.
Wake schools parent Erin Byrd said she took part in the demonstration because she wanted to express her opposition to the creation of high-poverty schools, which she believes will result from the dropping of the school board's diversity-based assignment policy.
And the Rev. Gregory Moss, of Charlotte, who was arrested along with Petty and Barber last week, said Wake's schools have been more advanced than those in Mecklenburg County until the new board took control.
"We are with you and may God bless you, and I say to these students, we stand with you, you are not alone," said Moss, president of the General Baptist State Convention.
School board chairman Ron Margiotta said last week that a new assignment plan being developed will not result in the creation of high-poverty schools.
"I know we have had this contentious public debate about the use of socioeconomic status of students in assignments," board member John Tedesco had said earlier today, noting that he and other majority board member oppose using income or racial indicators in assignments.
Opposition from civil rights and social justice groups has grown -- and attracted increasing national attention -- since the board's March 23 vote to end the diversity policy. Its largest manifestation to date was the July 20 downtown march that preceded that night's school board meeting.
"I want all of you to hear the message that you can do it next time," said Marie Garlock, a UNC-Chapel Hill student who attended Wake County schools before college.
Wake school officials said they've sent letters to those people arrested last week barring them from attending school board meetings unless they given written assurance they won't disrupt the proceedings. As the meeting neared an end, Barber called for the board to rescind its policy change on diversity as a prelude to meeting collaboratively with the NAACP to move forward for the schools' benefit.
