His prayer interrupted, Rev. T. Anthony Spearman is about to have his hands forced behind his back to be handcuffed. He offered them out to be cuffed in front of him, but was treated roughly and charged with obstruction.

I was in Raleigh yesterday for the Moral Monday on voting rights. Once again, there were 10 arrests.

This time, though, the police were a little meaner than previous times.

Rev. T. Anthony Spearman was praying, his hands clasped in front of him. He held them out to be handcuffed when police approached and they told him to put his hands behind his back. He asked to be cuffed in front and they pulled his hands apart and very roughly cuffed him behind his back. I thought they were going to knock him over.

A few minutes later, they approached Rev. William Barber and told him to put his hands behind his back.

“I can’t do that,” he said. “I need my cane to walk.”

They were about to pull his hands behind his back when the General Assembly police chief intervened and told them to cuff him in front.

Right after that, they approached Yara Allen, our movement’s song leader and Rev. Barber’s aide.

“I have a fractured foot,” she said. “My balance is off. I really need to be cuffed in front.”

Two cops grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her. They were not gentle.

“Please,” she said. I have a fractured foot. Can’t you see I’m wearing a boot?”

I thought she would land on the floor.

As the police cuffed her, she began to sing, and she continued singing as she was escorted, limping, to the elevator.

She, too, was charged with obstruction.

Linda Willey shows off her arms, badly bruised by cuffs that were too tight.

Linda Willey was cuffed behind her back and asked that her hands be cuffed in front of her when as she was being processed to be loaded onto a prison bus and taken to jail. The police obliged, but the cuffs were so tight that her arms were badly bruised.

The thing is, we have a right to be in that building. It belongs to us. The people in that building are our employees, charged with doing what is in the best interests of the people of this state.

Instead, they continue to pass laws that hurt low-income people, children, the elderly and people with illness and disability. When we exercise our constitutional right to address our legislators, we are turned away, arrested for “trespassing” on public property and violating fire code and noise regulations that change weekly.

In Florida and in Wisconsin, people occupied the legislature building for weeks; here in North Carolina, we are arrested within an hour.

I am working to save the lives of people who need health care but have no access to it. The legislature could change that with one vote, but they refuse to do so.

Others in the movement are working to restore voting rights, to restore the earned income tax credit, to restore funding to education, to restore women’s right to make their own reproductive decisions and more.

This legislature has led us dozens of years backwards, and we need to turn it around. To more than 1,050 of us, that has meant getting arrested for attempting to exercise our Constitutional right to address our legislators.

As we continue to come back, week after week, year after year, they become angrier and angrier at being questioned.

Now they’re starting to get rough with us. They need to know that won’t stop us. We will keep coming, again and again, regardless of their attitude, regardless of whether they’re rough with us.

We stand on the side of justice, and we will not go back.