On February 7, the eve of the 7th annual HKonJ march, IREHR staffer Devin Burghart traveled to North Carolina to deliver a talk entitled “Tea Party Nationalism and the Battle for the South” for a group of labor and civil rights activists. The event, co-sponsored by the Southern Workers Organizing Committee (SWOC – the fast food workers union) and the North Carolina NAACP College and Youth Division addressed the size and impact of the Tea Party in the state and opened up a discussion on how to fight back against the Tea Party.

SWOC organizing director, Ben Wilkins, noted that “In attendance at the workshop were labor organizers, student leaders, voting rights activists, and NAACP members, as well as unaffiliated concerned citizens. The group was diverse, but all came away with a sharper understanding of the need for all of us to unite in opposition to the extremism of the Tea Party movement.”