Why Rocky Mount Matters For America

Rocky Mount, North Carolina is a place long known for defying expectations. Only hearing the name, a visitor from out of state might assume it is a destination in the Blue Ridge mountains. But the rocky mound that is memorialized in the name of this Eastern North Carolina town isn’t a geological formation, but rather a pile of rocks someone made by the river in days gone by, when a passing boat on the Tar River might miss the place altogether if there wasn’t some sort of landmark.

Folks who stop by Rocky Mount don’t always find what they’re looking for.

On his way to Mar-A-Lago for the holidays, Donald Trump made a stop in Rocky Mount last night, looking for a crowd to cheer his lies about the economy. Despite the networks cutting from their regularly scheduled programing on Wednesday night to give him 20 minutes for a campaign speech from the White House, Trump didn’t get the boost he wanted. Maybe a rally with his base, someone thought, would be a way to end the year on a high note.

But whoever picked Rocky Mount, North Carolina is worried. The word “Indiana” wasn’t uttered in the press or from the stage, but Republican state senators there refused to do what Trump’s lackeys in the North Carolina General Assembly were more than happy to do just weeks ago - namely, to move tens of thousands of Republican voters from what they thought was a “safe” seat to a district currently represented by a Democrat. Seeing that the general mood of the country has turned against Trump in plummeting poll numbers, the working theory was that Republicans could use power where they have it to steal seats that might make up for ones they are likely to lose next year in the midterms. But the Republicans in Indiana looked at the numbers and told Trump that even the so-called “safe” seats aren’t safe anymore. Which means the gerrymander he ordered in Eastern North Carolina could lose Republicans a seat in Congress rather than gaining them one.

Team Trump wanted Rocky Mount to look like a victory lap when it was, in fact, a desperate attempt to rally the base in order to prove Indiana’s Republicans wrong.

According to Natalie Allison, reporting for the Washington Post, Guy Harper - a man who’s made his living for the past decade selling merchandise at Trump rallies - was already packing up his wares when she talked to him on her way into the event. “Look at this,” Harper said, pointing to empty streets and no lines outside the venue. “Usually, Trump rallies are like a football tailgate. This is strange.”

Nothing drives down the price of snake oil like people having time to try it out. Donald Trump returned to the White House selling a fake populism that promised hurting people he could bring down prices and bring back good jobs. One year in, the defining photo of his second term as president is the scene inside the Capitol rotunda, where the politicians huddled with America’s billionaires while everyone else was locked out in the cold.

11 months later, utility bill are up, prices at the grocery store remain high, millions of Americans are about to lose their healthcare, and working people are being assaulted because they speak Spanish or have brown skin. Meanwhile, the billionaires who dine at the White House received their windfall in a budget bill that was the single largest transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich in US history. And the Trump family, as the Wall Street Journal reported this week, has raked in $4 billion for themselves.

No wonder Trump was eager to get back to Mar-A-Lago.

But the people of Nash and Edgecombe counties - the Black, white, Hispanic, and Native people of District 1 in Eastern North Carolina - do not have a members-only resort to retreat to for their holiday celebrations. 19% of families here receive SNAP benefits - almost twice the national average. After ten long years of waiting, North Carolina finally expanded Medicaid just a couple of years ago. Almost 40% of this district now receives healthcare through Medicaid. When you add those who purchase ACA plans with the enhanced tax credits that MAGA’s Mike Johnson refused a vote to extend this week, the majority of people here who have access to healthcare are at risk of losing it.

Maybe it’s not so strange that the people of Eastern North Carolina aren’t showing up for fake populism rallies at the end of 2025. Maybe it’s a sign that the time is ripe for a genuine populism to change our imagination of what’s possible - not just in North Carolina, but all across America.

This is why, long before Trump decided to make a stop on his flight to Florida, we started talking to people in Eastern North Carolina earlier this fall about a campaign to re-claim the untapped power of everyday people in the Old North State. Even with a record turnout of 67% in the last Presidential election, there were still 185,000 registered voters in NC’s District 1 who did not vote in 2024. In a midterm election, as many as another 100,000 are expected to sit-out, to say nothing of the unregistered voters who could take advantage of same-day registration during early voting in North Carolina’s primary and general elections. There were more potential voters in the last midterm election who didn’t show up in Eastern North Carolina than who turned out for any candidate.

Which means a people’s movement could change everything - not only here, but in dozens of districts across America.

Trump got back on his plane and flew to Mar-A-Lago last night, but Bishop Barber and the Repairers of the Breach team will be in Plymouth, North Carolina this afternoon with local clergy and poor and low-income people who are determined to make Eastern North Carolina a bellwether for a people’s movement that can change the conversation about what is possible in 2026 and beyond.

2025 has given Americans plenty of extremism to resist, but resistance alone is not enough. People who are desperate to feed their kids and make a home for their loved ones need to know that something other than the mess we are living in is possible. People survive the harshest of winters when they set their sights on a purpose - the light that, however small it may seem at this distance - draws us forward toward the warmth of a better day.

We’re setting our purpose for 2026 by investing in a people’s movement in Eastern North Carolina that can defy expectations about what is possible in the South, in rural America, and even in so-called “red counties.” As Jesse Jackson noted when he ran for President in the 1980s, the South in full of “smooth stones” in unregistered and un-engaged voters who could bring down any Goliath if they were just gathered together.

When folks go down to Rocky Mount, they often don’t find what they expect. But if we stay a little while and organize people who know they’re not getting what they were promised, we could end up with new rocky mounds all along the Tar River to make sure no one ever again misses the power of this place.

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If you happen to be in Eastern North Carolina, please join Bishop Barber in Plymouth this afternoon. You can also tune in by livestream at 1pm ET: https://breachrepairers.org/get-involved/live/