NAACP to call for boycott of NC after failure to repeal HB2
RALEIGH (WTVD) – The North Carolina branch of the NAACP said Thursday it will request a national NAACP economic boycott of the state following the General Assembly’s failure Wednesday to repeal HB2.
A similar boycott of South Carolina over the Confederate flag at the statehouse in Columbia lasted 15 years and cost that state millions.
A supposedly bipartisan deal to repeal the anti-LGBT law collapsed Wednesday night when both sides balked and started blaming each other. After more than nine hours of backroom discussions and sporadic public effort, Republican state legislators quit trying to repeal the law and went home.
The law omits gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people from state anti-discrimination protections, bars local governments from passing broad non-discrimination ordinances covering them, and orders transgender people to use bathrooms and showers that align with their sex at birth.
Speaking at a news conference Thursday, North Carolina NAACP President William Barber said the law also prevents local governments from addressing employment conditions for their citizens.
“Some people like to say this is Democrat versus Republican, but this is extremism,” he said. “This is a party that has been hijacked by extremists who are afraid they cannot win if things are fair.”
Barber said NAACP lawyers are ready to challenge the General Assembly in court and he also called for a massive Moral Monday march in Raleigh February 11.
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