The Washington Post’s story about the DC Tea Party event includes interviews with North Carolinians who took the bus to DC from Durham.
About 100 started their day in a shopping mall parking lot in Durham, N.C., where two white coach buses rumbled through just after 10 a.m. to begin the six-hour journey to Washington. Activists climbed aboard wearing flag pins, T-shirts bearing the words “We the People,” and sequined baseball caps in red, white and blue.
Rolling along Interstate 85 through Southside Virginia, protesters spoke fiercely of their continuing dissatisfaction with the country’s direction. Many said they had never been politically active before the events of the past year. And many gave voice to their outrage in nearly identical phrasing, complaining about Obama’s efforts to “redistribute wealth,” about the “offshoring” of U.S. jobs, about the president’s strategy to “spend his way to prosperity.” Many also made a point of rejecting media potrayals of racist behavior within the movement.
“I’m just getting concerned about the way things are going,” said Mitch Harrison, 62, a retiree from Raleigh. Harrison said that he “pretty much always” votes Republican but that he sees value in demonstrations to push the party back to its conservative roots. Thursday’s protest, he said, was the first time he had participated in a political event.
The same was true for Madison Riddle, 14, a ninth-grader from Cornerstone Christian Academy in Statesville who rode the bus from Durham with her mother, Tracy Brown, her teacher Janice Myers and eight other students from her school. “We’re going to protest excessive taxes,” she said.
Back here in North Carolina, John Locke Foundation staffers — including John Hood, who spoke to about 700 in Winston-Salem — fanned out across the state to speak at the many events held in cities of all sizes. You can see photos and clips of speeches in The Locker Room.
