Ann Moss Joyner: Price for protesting

In the July 14 Under the Dome article “GOP tries to tie Moral Mondays to unions” you reported that the GOP is saying Moral Monday protesters are being paid by unions to protest.

I can only speak for myself, my family members (including my 86-year-old mother) and many of my friends, all of whom have attended many times over the last three years.

Not only are we not paid, but we pay in both money and time.

We take time off of work without pay, pay for gas to drive to Raleigh during rush-hour traffic and must eat out afterward since we can’t get home by dinner time.

We do this because we feel so strongly that the North Carolina GOP is doing everything in its power to harm North Carolina’s faith in democracy, its poor, its young, its elderly, its local government structures, its environment, its residents’ health and its health care providers.

Because of the gerrymandering of voting districts, we can no longer have faith that our vote will register our protest effectively, so we must protest in the streets and in the capital mall. The GOP has slandered us.

This story was originally published July 21, 2015 at 6:05 PM with the headline "Ann Moss Joyner: Price for protesting."