Advance Carolina Joins ENCCG’s Rally on Accountability for Insurrectionist
Amid a highly contested Midterm primary, Advance North Carolina joined the Eastern North Carolina Civic Group (ENCCG) for a rally and press conference in Elizabeth City on October 25, 2022. The rally, which took place in front of a Confederate monument at the Federal Courthouse, urged our nation’s leaders to use the fullest extent of the law to ensure elected leaders who conspired against this country on January 6, 2021, are brought to justice.
Marcus Bass, Advance Carolina’s executive director, noted the symbolism of the monument “erected to honor the lives of the individuals that attempted to overthrow the government” and the impact of the second failed insurrection in our nation’s capital. “If we fail to bring them to justice, think about what happens in all of our elected capacities across the state of North Carolina,” said Bass. “There are elections where sheriffs, district attorneys, and judges are on the ballot, he continued. “If we’re not holding those in elected office to the same standard we want everybody to abide by, what does that mean for our democracy and our government moving forward?”
James Sears, ENCCG’s vice president, read aloud a resolution of condemnation that draws from Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which states that no citizen who has sworn an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution but has participated in an insurrection or rebellion against the federal government shall serve in a civil or military capacity, or as any elected official at the state or federal level. The resolution signed by ENCCG’s chairman, Winfall Mayor Fred Yates, will be mailed to national and North Carolina lawmakers.
Also speaking during the rally were Moses Matthews, ENCCGs 2nd vice president; Peter Grear, a Wilmington-based attorney and co-publisher of Greater Diversity News; La’Meshia Whittington, deputy director for Advance Carolina; and Keith Rivers, president of the Pasquotank Chapter of the NAACP, and Elizabeth City Mayor Kirk Rivers.