Walking In Love

Today we begin our march from Wilson to Raleigh, NC. Together with North Carolinians from every walk of life, we are determined to love forward together.

Since this Love Forward campaign is about going hyper-local with a constructive program in the places we know and love, we’re grateful to local outlets that are committed to tell this story. The Cardinal and Pine titled its initial piece, “Mobilizing in Love.” Here’s how they framed the story:

Across the Tar Heel State, many North Carolinians who feel the most affected by political decisions often say they feel the least represented when elections roll around. Those folks include low-wage workers, formerly incarcerated voters, and families struggling to access health care or food assistance.

With the midterm elections approaching March 3 and early voting set to begin Thursday, Feb. 12, faith leaders and community organizers say their plan to remind overlooked communities that their vote still counts is rooted in an unexpected word for politics: love.

You can read more in our state paper of record, The News and Observer, as well as the Fayetteville Observer, that covered last week’s mobilization tour stop, City View, NC Newsline and QCity Metro. (Support local media! They are telling the stories that the corporate media ignores.)

We are walking this week because unAmerican forces of authoritarianism, from the White House to the Congress, have ushered in a politic of fear, division, and hate that has ripped at the fabric of communities across this nation. This is not new for America, but it’s also not who America says we want to be. In this moment, the politics of hate and division has created a crisis of civilization. It has taken healthcare from far too many, basic food from far too many, equal protection under the law from far too many.

Love can’t be silent anymore.

Far too many have been lynched, shot down in the street like our sister Renee Good and our brother Alex Pretti and so many others whose names are not as well known.

Enough is enough. Love can’t be silent anymore.

We’re walking in love over these next three days, and then assembling at a massive rally in Raleigh on Valentine’s Day, to announce that we have named and resisted the problem; now, it’s time to rally people around the solution. We’re going to tell it, share it, lift it, say it, and vote on it. It’s time to love forward together!

We’ve read and taught about Selma in ‘65 and Birmingham in ‘63 and so many other nonviolent movements - even the Moral Monday movement right here in North Carolina thirteen years ago. But those movements are behind us. It’s our time now.

It’s time stop rehearsing what they have done and declare what we will do. It’s time to talk about who we are.

We are Black. We are white. We’re indigenous. We are poor. We are working. We are welfare-conscious. We are young. We are old. We are straight from the East, and we ain’t going nowhere because it’s time for the lovers of justice and truth and humanity to stand up together like never before.

Over the next four days, we encourage you to follow-along at Repairers of the Breach to learn how you can meet up with us on the road or support this effort from where you are.

We’re also grateful that our friends at The Save America Movement are on the ground here in Eastern North Carolina and will be reporting out daily from the march via Substack Live.

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