A Fledgling Protest Movement Gathers Momentum in the South

[steve2470]

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/19/us/protest-disrupts-georgia-senate-session-on-bill-to-block-medicaid-expansion.html?hpw&rref=us&_r=0

ATLANTA — There was a son of a sharecropper and an advocate for the homeless, a college student and a great-grandmother, a retired store manager and the senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church.

By the end of the day, they were among the 39 people who were arrested Tuesday during choreographed waves of civil disobedience here at the state capitol in protest of the state’s refusal to expand Medicaid as part of the Affordable Care Act.

They shouted slogans and unfurled banners from the Senate gallery, sang spirituals in the marble rotunda and held a sit-in blocking the entrance to the governor’s office.

The Moral Monday movement, which began in North Carolina last year, moved inexorably into Georgia on Tuesday, where the arrests at the capitol were the group’s boldest action since it started protesting here in January. There were similar protests Tuesday in South Carolina, where a smaller but persistent campaign of civil disobedience played out for the third week in a row.

[Brigid]

1. So glad to hear of this happening!