On Monday, July 13th, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, a federal judge will start the trial of our historical lawsuit, NC NAACP v. McCrory. We will put on our evidence to prove that the voter suppression tactics that were rammed through the North Carolina legislature in 2013 are race-based, have a disparate impact on voters of color, and were intentionally passed by Gov. Pat McCrory, then-Speaker Thom Tillis, and Senate leader Phil Berger to suppress the votes of Black, Latino, and poor voters.

We invite you to come to Winston-Salem, to attend this historic trial, and to be a part of a historic march on the first day of the trial. UUA President Rev. Peter Morales will be leading the march and speaking with us at the rally. Unitarian Universalist clergy from North Carolina have issued a call for you to join us. We will be honored by your presence. This is the most important lawsuit against voter disenfranchisement in the nation. Slate, The Nation,Think Progress, and Mother Jones called North Carolina's law the "worst in the country". Because it has a wide-reaching impact not only across our state but across the nation, North Carolina is this generation's Selma.

The disappointing 2013 Supreme Court decision in Shelby v. Holder overturned key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that was passed in the aftermath of the historic Selma-to-Montgomery march. Following that 2013 ruling, voter suppression laws have proliferated across 22 states with more in the works. We must not stand by while the right to vote is taken away.

On July 13 a federal court in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, will hear arguments in N.C. NAACP v. McCrory, a case challenging that state’s recently enacted voter suppression laws. Outside the courthouse on that day, the Rev. Dr. William Barber, II, leader of the North Carolina NAACP’s Forward Together Moral Monday Movement, will lead a march and rally. Rev. Barber has invited me to share this stage with him, and I accepted without hesitation. I feel strongly that we Unitarian Universalists are called to stand with Rev. Barber in support of the right to vote.

Fifty years after Selma the fight for equal voting rights is still going on, and this summer a major battle is heating up in North Carolina. On July 13 the Federal Court in Winston-Salem, NC, will begin to hear the lawsuit that the North Carolina NAACP brought against Governor Pat McCrory (NC-NAACP v McCrory) to challenge the voter suppression law in North Carolina. This law is the first and worst since the US Supreme Court’s Shelby v. Holder decision, which gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

The outcome will impact voting rights across the nation, and UUA President Rev. Peter Morales has accepted the invitation of NC-NAACP President Rev. William Barber to come to Winston-Salem for a Mass Moral Monday March for Voting Rights and Justice at 5pm on July 13.
We hope to build on the Moral Monday movement that has helped mobilize a broad coalition in our state, and also to begin to make real the faithful pledge that Unitarian Universalists made at the 50th anniversary events in Selma this year. We stand on the shoulders of giants like Jimmie Lee Jackson, Unitarian Universalists James Reeb and Viola Liuzzo, and countless justice warriors who have gone this way before us. We stand on the side of love, and on the side of justice.