The Moral Mondays movement began in Raleigh, N.C., in April 2013 when hundreds of protesters converged on the statehouse for the first in an ongoing series of weekly demonstrations. It has now spread to Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Florida and Arizona.

The movement’s most important accomplishment has been to build a multi-issue, multiracial, statewide progressive coalition, one that North Carolina — or the South, for that matter — has never seen. It is fueled by popular anger against the Republican-led assault on the rights of workers and communities of color.

In North Carolina, Republicans have repealed the state’s earned-income tax credit; refused to participate in the expansion of Medicaid; cut off unemployment benefits; slashed education spending; cut taxes on the wealthy; and enacted the country’s harshest voting restrictions.

On Feb. 8, more than 80,000 people attended a Moral March in Raleigh — the largest civil rights rally in the South since 1965.

Organized by the North Carolina NAACP, Moral Mondays is being hailed by many as the most important movement for civil rights in 50 years.

The Nation, Feb. 19
Slate, Feb. 10