Portraits from Moral Monday, 6/9/14

Photos and text by Jane Wester

Dolores Sellers gestured protectively to grandson Tony Hatsfield as she praised North Carolina public education. “We need our teachers. I think they’re doing a good job educating our children – I don’t want them going to Texas or somewhere because they aren’t getting a fair wage.”
Cy King was a librarian at NC State before his retirement. “They’re undoing things that took years to get in place. We’re trying to turn it back, but I don’t know. It’s hard.”
Bruce and Kathryn Davis carried a stack of double-sided signs, which they flipped back and forth to support issues from women’s rights to the anti-fracking movement.Kathryn: “Can’t pick one.”Bruce: “Pick morality.”
Jeff Woodhead came with his daughter Seloh, who had clearly already answered several questions about her education.Seloh: “I’m in kindergarten at a public school. It’s five grades – kindergarten, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth.” Jeff: “I think she deserves the best education she can possibly get.”
Lila Little managed Mark Chilton’s successful campaign for Register of Deeds of Orange County. “I think they just wish we’d all die or move away – people who don’t measure up, poor people, people of color. They don’t wanna hear it, they just think we’re funny. And I just hope they find out – we’re not funny.”
Liz Evans (right) has been a member of the Raging Grannies since she retired in 2011. “I’m the daughter of a public school teacher who was in a union. She’d be here. She’d be hoppin’ mad. She would fight for her kids. She always fought for her kids.”
Alora Brackett, with her wife Lizz Allred and their dog Colours, said her reasons for protesting were simple. “Because my wife and I would like to get married, and eventually we would like to have children, and we’d like for those children to go to public schools.”
Natalia Hacerola, the dark-haired woman by the yellow section, had tied her rainbow banner to trees until she was asked to remove it by police officers. She then recruited friends and strangers to hold it up with her. “I just wanted to have a 40 foot rainbow. To me, a rainbow means inclusion of everything, but unfortunately not everyone gets that, so I wrote it on the rainbow.”
Natalia Hacerola, the dark-haired woman by the yellow section, had tied her rainbow banner to trees until she was asked to remove it by police officers. She then recruited friends and strangers to hold it up with her. “I just wanted to have a 40 foot rainbow. To me, a rainbow means inclusion of everything, but unfortunately not everyone gets that, so I wrote it on the rainbow.”
Sarah Peterson, a student at UNC-Chapel Hill, was helping to operate giant puppet Rosa. “I grew up in the public school system and now I attend a public university, and I’m majoring in women’s and gender studies, where funding is being cut. And I have friends who are education majors, who want to go into education, and I’m worried about them being able to live on such low salaries.”