Enough is Enough Rally, SC State House Jan. 14
By Becci Robbins
Communications Director, SC Progressive Network
As Moral Mondays take off in North Carolina, the media has taken to linking our movements, along with Georgia’s Moral Mondays. But while the Truthful Tuesday movement has been informed and inspired by our neighbors, it is actually continuation of work a coalition of activists in South Carolina began in 2011 in response to proposed deep budget cuts to education and critical social services.
That year, advocacy and faith-based organizations planned a Moral Budget rally (a moniker our NC friends would adopt) followed days later by a visit inside the State House to Mob the Lobby.
At last year’s SC Progressive Network fall retreat in October, participants issued a call for a mass action at the SC State House on the opening day of the legislative session. Between then and January, organizers worked hard to make it happen. It paid off.
The Enough is Enough rally was powerful, providing enough fuel to launch “Truthful Tuesdays,” a sustained lobbying effort targeting SC lawmakers pushing an extreme agenda at the expense of the state’s most vulnerable: children, the elderly, the infirm and the poor.
This year, we will be focus on getting lawmakers to expand Medicaid. Failure to do so will cost an estimated 1,400 South Carolinians their lives.
As each organization comes on board, the coalition grows stronger and more able to defend “the least of these.”
Join us! Call 803-808-3384 for details.
The rally and lobby action were enough pressure for lawmakers to reduce their budget cuts by one-third. Rep. Joe Neal recounts how it went down in this clip, from the Network’s spring conference in June, 2011.
The South is rising, y’all!
