Why HKONJ 2?

Statement to the media in Raleigh, Feb. 9, 2008:

The language of our state’s constitution adopted after the Civil War is lofty and grand in its tone. It begins “We, the people of the State of North Carolina, grateful to Almighty God, the Sovereign Ruler of Nations, for the preservation of the American Union and the existence of our civil, political, and religious liberties...”

Each state official has taken an oath to uphold the State Constitution. North Carolina’s founding principle was the people expressed in terms of “we.” Its moral framework was that the same God who calls us to do justice, love mercy, and care for the least of us was also the hand of
providence behind the formation of our state with the commitment to protect the civil, political, and religious rights of all our citizens.

HKonJ is once again calling upon us to remember and act upon these grand principles. While we have made progress, North Carolina is not yet fully upholding its founding principles.

Far too many of our children languish in poverty and are in schools that are underfunded and underperforming.

Many of our people are without health care or health insurance.

Many of our people are making minimum wage, not a living wage.

Large numbers of our people live in substandard, inhumane housing.

Large numbers of our people are affected by global warming, as evidenced by Hurricane Katrina.

Large portions of our poor are warehoused in prisons and affected by racist drug laws.

We are not protecting the very liberties we claim are so valuable abroad.

We as a state have not truly acknowledged or redressed years of racial and economic discrimination and decades of racial violence.

We fall far too short of who we claim to be in our constitution. Too many of the bills on the People’s Agenda are never heard or shown the light of day.

And so, “we the people” are coming to Raleigh. “We the people” are demanding that the General Assembly remember it is our house.

“We the people” are unifying our efforts. “We the people,” directed by faith and focus, are determined to infuse a fresh ethic in the veins of North Carolina politics. And “we the people” intend on seeing this through. This is not a moment, but a movement!

The facts say, when we do a systematic analysis of our social order, there is still work to do. Right now we’re putting more money into prisons each year than the budgets of all five of our historically black colleges and universities combined. Winston-Salem, Fayetteville, North Carolina Central, A & T, Elizabeth City - take all five of their budgets together, and the amount North Carolina puts into prisons each year is greater. Black people are 20% of the population and spend more than $46 billion every year. Yet black people still get less than one percent of all the state contracts that are given by the state government in North Carolina today. And that represents 200 years of discrimination.

That’s why I wrote the General Assembly last year, on behalf of justice and the thousands of members of the NAACP and our coalition partners, when everybody was talking about apologizing for slavery. And I explained what apology must mean if it’s to be appreciated. In the 19th chapter of St. Luke, one of the last miracles that Jesus performed on his way to Jerusalem was a deliberate visit to the house of Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was a person of power who used his position to take from others. The Bible says that only when Zacchaeus repented and offered redress and repair for all those that he had harmed did Jesus say salvation and wholeness had come to his house. If North Carolina is serious about apologies, then let us use the model of Jesus and start some redress and repair.

Enact the 14-Point HK on J Agenda.

If we’re serious about wholeness and being a better state apologizing, then let’s stop the re-segregation of our schools.

Let’s properly deal with 200 years of discrimination.

Let’s fully fund Leandro and the Disadvantaged Student Supplemental Fund for our children.

Let’s strengthen our civil rights enforcement agency and make hate crimes a felony.

Let’s redress and make reparations for the Wilmington terrorist act of 1898 and the sterilization of black women.

Let’s deal with real truth and reconciliation about the massacre by the Klan in Greensboro in 1979.

Let us double the funding for minority economic development.

Let’s repeal collective bargaining restrictions and stand with Smithfield workers in Tar Heel.

Let’s make a full commitment to provide all the resources necessary to fix the 44 failing high schools that are mostly poor and mostly black.

Let’s deal with the injustices and discrimination in our criminal justice system, in our health care system, and housing development.

Let us believe we can do better and do it.