RALEIGH, N.C. (ABP) — A North Carolina Baptist pastor said July 27 she does not understand why she was arrested July 20 for simply trying to attend a public meeting of a school board whose policy on integration she had earlier been arrested for protesting.
Nancy Petty
|
Nancy Petty, pastor of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, and three others were first arrested on second-degree-trespassing charges June 15 after refusing to give up the podium at a meeting of the Wake County Board of Education.
The four, which also included the president of the North Carolina NAACP, used civil disobedience to protest recent votes by the board to scrap the district's student-diversity policy. Critics say the reversal will lead to de facto re-segregation of the county's schools.
The four said they were then informed by letter they were banned from future school board meetings unless they submitted written assurance in advance they would not be disruptive.
Petty and NAACP head William Barber ignored the letter and were arrested a second time July 20 in a parking lot as they tried to enter the meeting. Later another 16 people were arrested for disrupting the meeting. They were charged with trespassing and disorderly conduct.
On July 27 a total of 19 people arrested so far in protests held a press conference at Pullen Memorial to explain their actions and to object to the "selective detention" of Barber and Petty.
Petty, a former co-pastor of the church who was affirmed as senior pastor after her fellow co-pastor, Jack McKinney, retired last year, said in a prepared statement that she practiced non-violent civil disobedience June 15 because she "believed strongly that the anti-diversity majority on the Wake County School Board was committing an injustice to our children and our community when they voted to dismantle the Wake County School System's nationally recognized socio-economic diversity policy."
"Justice, in the context of my faith, teaches me that I am to stand up for those without leverage to sustain their own legitimate place in society and that I am to make sure that all members of the community have access to resources and good for the sake of a viable life of dignity," said Petty, parent to two children in the school system.
Petty said she was released by a magistrate after her original arrest without any restrictions and had not appeared in court or been found guilty of any crime. When she was arrested for the second time, she said she was told it was for not complying in writing with the conditions set on her attendance by the school board chairman.
Petty claimed the school board is not a court of law and has no authority to limit her constitutional right to free speech. Since her second arrest, Petty said she is now legally restricted from attending a school board meeting until the charges against her have been settled.
The July 20 school board meeting followed a march earlier in the day to protest the school board's plan to end busing of students to schools outside of their neighborhoods. Board members say focusing on local schools will reduce travel time for students.
"No to prejudice! No to racism! And no to inequality in our schools!" Petty said in remarks at the July 20 rally captured on video by the Associated Press.
The current diversity policy is intended to prevent any single school from drawing more than 40 percent of its students from poor families. Opponents say the new policy will create high-poverty schools with higher dropout rates, leading to more crime. They say what's happening in Wake County is part of a larger national trend of re-segregating public schools.
Petty, a graduate of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, said in a recent interview with the Raleigh Public Record that civil disobedience was not her first choice of action, but earlier efforts of writing letters and lobbying failed to further the discussion.
-30-
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.